


Jotunheim

by SofiaDragon



Series: Another Turn of the Wheel [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aesir culture's idea of mental health in children is incompatible with Jotun Culture, Body Dysphoria, Culture Shock, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderfluid Character, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loki Is Not A Runt, Mental Health Issues, Racism, Self-Esteem Issues, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaDragon/pseuds/SofiaDragon
Summary: Shaken by the events of the last year, Loki does what he always does when things get difficult with his family: he goes wandering. Jotunheim is the only one of the nine primary realms he has yet to see with his own eyes, and now that he can change his form at will it might be worth the risk.





	1. Camping in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows directly after 'A Timely Warning.' You may be confused if you don't read that first, as these are meant to be treated like a book series. I no longer post a new chapter 1 until I'm nearly finished with a story, so expect there to be significant breaks between 'books' and then rapid posting of chapters once they start.

The hills surrounding Gladsheim gradually rose into a tall mountain range that framed the East and South of the province. Fertile fields filled in the valleys and rolled up the gentler slopes, but eventually gave way to older and older trees. Only a few miles in there were trees so wide and old that Loki's great-grandparents might have walked beneath their leaves. He found a clearing, the massive trunk of the fallen tree that made it shine with green moss in the sunlight. This was the inspiration for his colors, the gold of the sunlight and wildflowers complimenting the rich green of the leaves and moss. So many thought he'd just picked the opposing colors to Thor's burgundy and silver as if he'd have such a shallow singular motive. Such pristine wilderness was exactly why Loki took these trips.

The leather tent was set up quickly in the shade at the edge of the clearing. For the first day, he snared a rabbit for dinner and played his flute while it cooked. He played around by attempting some difficult yoga poses on top of a fallen log and fell off into a bed of wildflowers when a bit of bark gave way beneath him. If Heimdall was watching, he was bored. On the second day, he moved his camp further into the forest, used his fishing net in a stream and generally kept to the plan of a standard camping trip that Odin should stop monitoring before anyone fell asleep from boredom.

Late in the night, Loki was quite certain that he was no longer being actively watched and cast a spell to obscure any surveillance and ensure his privacy. He had been listening to the music player off and on, and now he set one of the rhythmic instrumentals on repeat and gently drifted into meditation. It took an hour or so to work past the ingrained control and pull up a significant amount of magic. He tried to let go and just play as a child would, but it had been so long since he'd had discipline beaten into him that it was much harder than he expected. He could hold the magic and focus on the music, but he couldn't put the two things together. Hours passed without anything happening.

Then he accidentally fell asleep. He woke up again almost immediately from the intensity of the experience. His magic had spread out into his surroundings, and he was deeply aware of every tiny detail. He could feel the ants investigating the edge of the tent and the sway of the leaves above him. Loki breathed deeply, feeling his magic steadily spreading out further. It was almost like a drug as the natural energy of the forest mixed with and filtered through his own more orderly seidr. As he spilled out into the forest he came into contact with various animals, and he quickly lost the ability to keep track of everything. It started to get out of control, with the vibrant natural energies pouring into him through every pore to feed the spell. He wasn't certain what it was doing, but it was certainly more than just awareness. The energy flowed through him: in and out and around and in again, almost too bright to look at.

Loki wrenched himself out of the spell, sitting up and gasping. He ripped the music player out of his ears and lent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and just trying to figure out what he'd done. Some of the passages from the Yoga book flashed through his mind, the blathering about becoming one with his surroundings. Perhaps it wasn't all snake oil and feel-good nonsense. He was far too energized to sleep, and the jittery energy kept him running well into the next night as he investigated the effects of the spell.

Loki stood under an ancient old tree and reached forward cautiously. It felt strange to stretch out with such raw energy, but the echo was pleasant. More refined spells were crafted specifically to avoid such sparkling interaction, and the chaotic buzz made him giggle. The spell, if he could even call it that, reacted differently depending on what it touched. It wasn't terribly hard to duplicate once he'd done it the first time, the hard part was controlling its reach and avoiding a self-fueling spiral of ever-increasing radius. Some of the plants tickled, others were somber, and the wildflowers left him cackling like a madman. Generally, healthy plants felt good and those that had been damaged by disease or lightning felt bad. He could manage quite the range if he kept the focus narrow, and got tangled up in a beehive on the next hill over for the better part of an hour. Once he'd disconnected from the hive mind, he'd needed to take a break for lunch and been interrupted by a cloud of agitated and highly confused bees.

Other animals were certainly aware of his poking around. It wasn't just bees sniffing around looking for the source of the strange magical fireworks, and he had to quickly climb up a tree several times to avoid curious predators. He didn't quite trust himself in battle given the way the magic lingered on him. Loki did have a vague sort of mental control over animals while he was 'connected' to them. He had no idea what sort of situation would have brought his other selves to discover these quirky little tricks, nor did he see how it was of any value beyond the most basic scouting. The influx of ambient magical energy might be useful as a refueling mechanism if it wasn't so hard to manage while being mostly undisturbed. He didn't want to think about how difficult it would be to control while being attacked. The high finally crashed around sundown, and Loki gladly flopped down onto the pile of furs and heather in his tent.

After a few more days of fine weather, Loki awoke before dawn and crawled out of his tent to a misty, wet morning. He'd crisscrossed familiar trails over the last few days, these woods being so well known to him that it was essentially a second home. He was rather deep into the hills now, near the transition to proper mountains. By the time the first sun rose Loki had some pork belly and potatoes fried up. A nice, relaxing camping trip simply wasn't going to quiet the thousand thoughts crowding his mind. Even the odd bit of magic he'd discovered just didn't hold his attention. There was the letter, his now questionable gender, his father's bewildering prejudice against an inborn ability, and his mother's apparent tolerance of Jotuns. Loki had thought he could come out here and enjoy a refreshing camping trip with a little bit of magical experimentation to spice things up and put all of it out of mind for a while. He bit into his breakfast and tried to focus on the here and now, but just ended up wondering if Odin's overbearing tendencies and unequal treatment would have made more sense in the moment if Loki had grown up as a girl.

Loki broke camp. He needed a bigger distraction, and he knew just the thing. It was insane, but he'd gone to Muspelheim unannounced and survived. This wouldn't be much different. There were a number of pathways in the hills and mountains. Some were well used, heading to the various provinces located on other asteroids within the realm. Those were carefully maintained so just about anyone could travel throughout the realm's disjointed land masses from the capitol Gladsheim to distant (and rebellious) Nornheim, two of them sporting proper toll booths. Other more volatile and less known paths connected to Yggdrasil's greater structure, allowing only the truly talented to climb to other branches. Loki probably knew more of these dangerous pathways than anyone else, though Amora the Enchantress likely came in a close second. His nearest rival certainly wasn't in the habit of personally using them as a source of amusement, and with practice came speed unmatched.

He'd walked eight of the nine realms. There was no real reason he couldn't complete the set, so long as he was quiet. The path he chose was one he'd used before to reach Midgard, and he branched off along a likely side path from that hub. Climbing Yggdrasil was an endurance test and lived up to the euphemism. He was in the space between worlds, pulling himself along strings of light and hanging off bands of energy. Yggdrasil herself was a pulsing web of interconnected exotic matter and energy that most simply described as pure magic. One part weather pattern, one part living creature, both matter and energy were exchanged between realms through her: pulled in through entropy based 'roots' and poured out through blooming 'branches.' Loki was essentially moving through a very efficient digestive system while avoiding being dissolved into component parts or consumed whole. Not to mention the need to use medical spells to recycle his breath internally, as Yggdrasil was not terribly concerned with providing him a breathable atmosphere. There was good reason few successfully learned to navigate the world tree.

Each realm had its own effect on Yggdrasil. He'd expected a chill similar to how Muspelheim's pathway was hot. It didn't come, but he did notice that the branches and roots started to resemble crystals. The pathway was also alarmingly narrow. He ducked down a couple of side paths looking for a good exit, but many of them were withered and dark. Considering that light was a main component of the tree, he didn't trust that the shadowy areas were just a characteristic of Jotunheim. Surely the damage from the war couldn't have been that extensive and long lasting?

Loki was starting to wonder if he should flip back over to Midgard to regroup and get some fresh air when he finally found a brightly lit path. Crystalline tendrils lined the path, alight from within with what looked like aurora. There were still little hints of shadow on the edges, but the path was wide and clean. He stood at the edge and pulled out several layers of clothing to wrap himself in. It might be pleasant here between worlds, but he knew Jotunheim itself would be frozen. He took a deep breath - metaphorically - and prepared to make a hasty retreat if necessary. He was fond of risks and chaos, but he wasn't really suicidal, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was pretty tame, but Loki is escaping his issues. He will be confronted with them soon. I debated putting a trigger warning in the description, but Loki and his bag of issues are fairly well recognized. If you read the first part of this and mind the tags it should be obvious that heavy topics are incoming. I do not pull my punches.


	2. The Realm of Ice and Monsters

The first thing Loki noticed when he stepped out of the ethereal plane was that describing Jotunheim as cold was likely the largest understatement anyone had ever put to paper. The second thing was that he had lost contact with the ground. He was certain he'd stepped out onto solid ground, but the wind was so fierce that when it caught his cape he'd actually blown away. It took a moment to banish the cape, but it was only the sudden sensation of stopping and the feel of hard ice under his hands and knees that let him know he'd succeeded in ending his impromptu kite impersonation.

So, this was a blizzard on Jotunheim. What wonderful timing. Loki rather hoped this was one of the more severe ones, simply because he didn't want to have to deal with anything worse than this. There was no light, the wind wavered in its direction too much to use as a compass, and the energies he had used to transport himself were already scattered away by the raw power of the storm. He was rapidly freezing to death despite all his precautions, and his gasp of shock had filled his lungs with painfully cold air. Even if he'd only blown a dozen yards, returning to the relative safety of Yggdrasil's branches would take long minutes of searching followed by focusing energy that he did not have to spare. No one could survive this for long, no matter how thick his furs.

 _Jotun. I have to change into a Jotun or I'm going to die,_ Loki thought. It wasn't palatable. He'd anticipated trying out the shape at some point, but it made him feel a bit queasy. They weren't proper people, after all, and something in him rejected it, but then horses weren't people either. If he could be a horse to run from kidnappers, he could be a Jotun to avoid becoming an ice sculpture.

The sudden relief from the temperature surprised him. He hadn't thought he'd properly decided to change, but then his body was likely running on self-preservation instincts more than actual cognition. He'd expected it to be more challenging and time-consuming considering he'd never even seen one, but perhaps since they were one of the major races and this was their realm his magic had picked up on what it needed to do. In any case, the blizzard was still horrible and remaining out in it unlikely to be healthy. He estimated he'd more than doubled the length of time he could remain exposed to the storm, but it was still biting into him and he had no clue how to find his way back to Yggdrasil.

He could see a little better, just the barest outline of the ground before everything dissolved into windblown snowflakes. He could tell when his eyes were open and when they were closed, so that was technically an improvement. Loki cast out his senses, feeling forward with magic as best he could, but without any obvious plant life he had no idea how to control his spell. Instead of feeling out the terrain he felt the chiming power of the storm all around, with a sucking entropy warring with the power of the storm that was nearly as draining as the cold. Loki had to switch focus from looking at energy to looking at the voids left by solid objects to make sense of it. The wind was howling loud as a tornado, and he thanked the Norns the only thing it carried was snow. The icy sting was bad enough without sharp bits of ice or larger things buffeting him. Given how vibrant the pathway through Yggdrasil was he knew there had to be something nearby feeding it. He just hoped it was a settlement of some kind, and not some geyser or other natural phenomena.

A narrow crack in the ice was buried under the snow nearby. Loki had to push aside snow as deep as his chest to get to it, but his magic told him the narrow passage opened up to a cave below. He wriggled down, sliding neatly through the gap and onto a ledge that looked suspiciously flat and level. The storm blew hard enough that the tunnel he'd made collapsed and refilled with windblown snow in moments.

Now that he'd gotten out of the energy-draining wind he had a chance to examine himself. He summoned a torch and set it aflame to see by and warm his shivering body. His hands were blue, of course, with dark claws in place of fingernails and delicate lines woven into the skin. He supposed he had the first contradiction in the varied stories sorted out: The lines weren't scars. Loki certainly would never have been 'ritualistically mutilated' as an infant, and in any case, the lines were certainly more than skin deep. He pulled off his outer clothing and rolled up his sleeves to have a good look. The lines rose up through the skin and appeared to act as both decorations and as a place for connective tissues to bind. They were harder than the skin around them, the ribbons of cartilage providing a bit of natural defense for the larger veins and arteries. The skin itself seemed to have only changed color, and Loki saw no difference in elasticity or texture other than the addition of the lines. They still looked very much like his own hands. He was much the same size as well, which was a bit odd.

He didn't need much clothing to keep warm. He knew the Jotnar themselves didn't bother much with it, and now he could feel why. In the blizzard he was glad for being covered, but now that he was underground in still air the four layers of furs were simply too hot. He had similar claws on his toes as on his fingers, and so did away with the now ill-fitting boots before he ruined them. He snuffed the flame and peeled down to two layers, keeping one thick set of white furs on in case there was something of the storm he had to endure down here. For the inner layer, he mostly kept what he had: simple cloth and leather wraps around his calves and feet, a loose pair of trousers and a ragged shirt that left his arms mostly bare. It was his best poor traveler look, and he guessed that a Jotun wandering about in the storm might adopt a similar garb. He had to loosen the white furs that lay over his shoulders and hips almost as soon as he started climbing, as the trapped heat was making him sweat.

The handholds were regular and the platforms level, so Loki could recognize them as intentionally made even though they weren't at all geometric and spaced out uncomfortably far from one another. It looked plausible that they could have been natural formations if taken one at a time, but the whole thing together was clearly planned. At the bottom there was a path clear of debris or snow, aside from the little bit Loki had knocked down in his initial entrance. The faint light from some kind of bio-luminescent lichen illuminated the way. There was only one way to go, so Loki started walking. It was quiet other than the distant roar of the storm, and Loki kept his head on a swivel looking for anything useful. The chasm was nearly natural in form, with only the smooth pathway beneath him showing that anyone had been here before him. When it widened out, the untouched areas were dense with ice formations of all kinds and the floor of the natural areas looked covered in broken glass. It curved subtly left and right for a long while before ending in an archway.

Loki poked his head cautiously into the hallway. It was much clearer that this was built by someone. The hallway was cut smoothly into a solid glacier. This far down from the surface, the glacier's weight had pressed many of the air bubbles out of the ice. The walls shone a translucent blue in the odd light, and the architectural details reminded Loki of glass etchings. The ceiling itself was a simple semicircle supported by an arcade of columns and arches, all carved out of the solid glacial ice, with little pockets of glowing plant life tucked into the arches. The glass-clear quality and softened edges of the arches scattered the light in interesting patterns on the etched floor.

As encouraging as this sign of civilization was, the hallway stretched out in both directions for a long way before turning and had no indication as to which way one ought to go to reach civilization. He noted that the lights were only on one side, so clearly there was a method for keeping track of what direction one was heading, but he didn't know the meaning. On a whim he headed left, catching a brief reflection of his red eyes in the glass-like walls. They probably needed to be maintained to keep such a polish, but some of the edges of the columns and arches were sharper than others. He was rather certain that when new they had squared corners and sharp cuts where they met the ceiling or wall. What did it mean about their structural integrity that they seemed a bit melty? There wasn't any sign of liquid water around right now, or of any layers of refrozen ice, but it looked like heat had stripped off a few layers from the place. Perhaps it was wear, similar to how old stone would slowly grind to dust under people's heels and the tiles would need to be replaced. In his own lifetime, he'd had to replace the soft soapstone handles on his chamber doors twice, as the original carvings of the royal seal in the green stone had gradually worn into a smooth polish.

The finished hallway didn't branch. The connecting sections looked much like the one he had entered from, natural pathways that likely led to other entrances. The direction he'd taken was gradually going up and turned such that he was traveling a very large, vague spiral. It was perhaps more properly described as an underground road given the length, though some sort of road sign would be greatly appreciated. He walked for quite a while and had only just started to contemplate investigating some of the side paths when he finally heard something. There wasn't anywhere to hide, it had been a while since the last doorway, so he simply waited to see what would happen. Through one of the side paths a huge Jotun appeared, wearing a kilt and thick fur shawl. It was carrying a little bag in one hand and feeling along the wall with the other. Loki stood still, but the man didn't take any notice of him at all and only turned away. That was a bit rude, or careless. Loki started following the bigger man - and he was well over twenty-five feet tall. After a moment the Jotun stopped and looked behind himself.

"Who is there?" he asked. "It's rude to play such tricks, you know. My eyes may have been damaged in the war, but I'll still find you well enough to teach you manners." Loki had a choice here and quickly made it.

"I didn't know you were blind. I thought it was a bit rude you turned away without saying anything," Loki replied.

"Oh, you are a little one, aren't you?" the big man asked, looking down and squinting. "Just listen to that voice, smooth as crystal ice and so far down below! I don't recognize it. Where are your elders, child?"

"I got lost in the storm and found my way down here," Loki supplied, adopting a worried tone. "I wasn't sure if I was going the right way."

"Lights to the right will take you through the night," the big man recited. "You did well. Now, come closer a bit and let me take a look at you. My eyes aren't quite gone." Loki hesitantly stepped forward, quite aware of every child-eating tale he'd been told. The bigger man certainly seemed genuine. "You're scared," the man sounded downright insulted. "No child is scared of old O, not in all of Tonder. Come on, closer, that's it."

'Old O' reached out and pat Loki gently about the shoulder and back, blinking his large red eyes owlishly. There were obvious scars around his eyes and nose as if he'd been hit in the face with a mace. At this close distance, Loki could see how the irises in O's glowing red eyes were slightly misshapen. He bent down on his knees and prodded at Loki's arms and legs a bit, almost like he was checking for injuries on a battlefield, then stood up.

"Nasty business," he grumbled to himself. "Nothing your age ought to be in a situation like this. I'm Odaric, most people just call me O. The blizzard can't blind me much more than I am, so they sent me up to check on things. Lost my cloak in that wind, got nothing I wanted. We grow plants on the cliff-side, you see, but anything big enough to harvest is long buried. I sincerely hope some of it went missing into your stomach before then."

"No, sir, I only found this place a little while ago," Loki admitted.

"With that storm blowing its fury for the last nine nights?" O chuckled in clear disbelief and started walking. "You must be made of stern stuff. That's a better reason to have wrapped yourself than what I thought."

"What did you think?" Loki asked.

"Nothing you worry about, little," O purred, like a nanny to a babe. Loki was having a hard time deciding if he'd guessed the right gender for Odaric despite the lack of breasts and apparent military experience. "We'll get you a hot bath in the springs to thaw you out and a good meal to settle you in."

"Uh, thank you. I don't have any money, but I do have some things…"

"You can share what you like, but if it's something your heart values we won't make you give it up." O seemed to be considering something seriously after that. The pathway had arced downhill again and met up with a heavy metal door that opened into a similar hallway cut into stone. Odaric was able to open it with some sort of combination lock, and it clicked shut behind them surprisingly quietly. "Do you think your elders will be waiting for you in Tonder? They might have taken shelter here while you were lost."

"They weren't headed this way," Loki parried. In the distance, Loki could hear the movement and voices of many people. "I've been alone for a while now. I tried staying put and waiting out the storm, but I was getting buried." O nodded, a crease on his brow that indicated he was thinking far too much about this and Loki needed to put a stop to it. He doubted his story could hold up to much scrutiny. "I'm quite capable of hard work, and would only need shelter until the storm passes."

"You are welcome to stay until your elders can be located," O replied, sounding a bit confused. "This is not a small town, and we are not so crowded to turn away a child."

"That's good to hear, but I assure you I am willing to work and capable of returning home on my own when the weather permits. I'm not that lost. What is Tonder like?"

"You will see shortly, but there are many littles like you. We have been blessed, and last year the King himself came to award the city for its prosperity. Loa is round with child again, and will likely give birth before the storm passes. She and her husband work in the forge. Lord Coulful is the master blacksmith; he's quite busy this time of year, and he still took time to ensure she is well cared for."

"I'm sure I can be useful somewhere," Loki assured.

"Of course, little, of course," O encouraged. "There is quite a bit to do all the time, even during the storm season. When the storm ends in a couple weeks, we'll help you find your family."

"Weeks?" Loki echoed without meaning to, shocked by the casual reference to a storm nearly a month long. O opened another door and they were suddenly in a populated street, with a few Jotnar walking along.

"Here we go," O encouraged, herding Loki through an archway into a highly polished room about fifty feet square before he got a good look at the other Jotnar in the street. The floor and walls were all stone here, some dark volcanic type that polished well. A large metal door on a rolling track took up most of the opposite wall. Long benches and shelves of varied heights filled the room. "You get undressed and grab a towel, and I'll help you into the water after I've told Glyn I'm back."

Loki watched with sharp eyes as O went through another smaller door and left Loki alone in the locker room. He shrugged and stripped down. It didn't give him any additional disadvantage in a fight, after all. He sat on one of the smaller benches and folded the white furs neatly. He took his time unwinding his 'shoes.' The sharp claws on his feet had poked all the way through with his walking, and he wondered if going shoe-less was as common as in the illustrations. That was something he supposed made sense, since he'd cut through and ruined rather thick leather. He tucked everything into one of the the square baskets under the bench. In other news, his genitalia were a bit odd. He looked like a girl no matter how he demanded his body behave and change into a boy, but the outer bit was shut tight and stiff with some kind of cartilage shell. Maybe this was male? There wasn't any change when he tried to shift into a girl. He went back to blue after a brief and successful change into his old body, so whatever was going on he couldn't be male unless he wanted to freeze to death for some boneheaded reason.

He wasn't any bigger overall, which he found odd. Really, he should have noticed that right away, but he hadn't even grown enough to make his clothing tight. He wondered if it had to do with the circumstances of his desperate change, or if this was somehow a proper analogue according to his changeling nature. Odaric certainly assumed he was a small child, and that suited Loki just fine. It would let him observe and ask questions, and if he suddenly disappeared they could put it down to some predator or an independent streak sending him home on his own power. Certainly they wouldn't bother much for some random foundling or disfigured midget.

Loki found the towels in a large lattice shelf. They were spongy and varied in size, but he found one of them that seemed to fit his size appropriately on a shelf at his eye level. While he was putting back a couple that were much too small a sudden rush of noise came from the door O had left through. Loki jumped back from the stone shelf and tried to hide in the corner as a dozen Jotnar poured into the room. They were mostly smaller than him, and all of them chatting loudly.

"Calm down, everyone," a woman - he was pretty sure this time, flat chest be damned - called over the fray. She wasn't quite as tall as O, who came in behind her, and she bore a strong resemblance to the old soldier with the addition of long braided black hair. "You have scared our new arrival." All heads swiveled around to follow the woman's gaze, and Loki gave an awkward little wave. O pushed through and came up to Loki's side.

"Let's get cleaned up, right?"

"Yes, Sir," Loki chirped.

Loki stayed close as the former soldier stripped off his shawl and kilt and grabbed one of the largest towels. The 'other children' were giving Loki a look and he most certainly wasn't ready for twenty questions. In short order O was working to get the large sliding door open. The woman had been waiting by the door and helped the man pull out the pins that held it shut.

"What is your name, little?" O prompted.

"I'm Logn," Loki supplied, enjoying the pun.

"It is nice to meet you, Logn," the woman said. "I am Glyn, and I take care of several orphan children here in Tonder." She didn't detain them, and Loki followed O into the mist-filled room. There was a huge pool dominating the place, something that would be the envy of many vacation destinations throughout the nine realms. The water was constantly spilling over the edge at the back of the room, welling up from somewhere near the center.

Loki ignored the lower row and hung his towel on a hook next to O's (though he had to reach up considerably to do so.) He mimicked the huge soldier as he rubbed oil over his scarred skin and then scraped off the dirt in a depression with a drain near one wall. O took the liberty of pouring oil over Loki's hair, but Loki jumped away before the old man could wash his hair for him. Loki had several oil baths during his life as part of certain ritual purifications, most notably before he took the title 'Prince' and swore loyalty to the crown at age seven-hundred-and-fifty, but not as a regular method of getting clean. He ignored the arrival of the others, keeping O between him and the crowd.

"This spring comes up through the rocks. The same heat helps Lord Coulful with his forge down below, but this is dissipated enough not to burn, so don't be afraid," Loki just snorted and jumped in. As he kicked along under the surface he heard a commotion and popped up in the middle of the pool to see what was going on.

"Ze's going to drown!"

"How did ze do that?"

"It's inter magic."

"Ze's floating!" the other children were exclaiming.

"It is called swimming," Glyn explained indulgently.

"Like fish do?" one of the smallest ones asked.

"Yes, like fish do. It takes a lot of practice to learn," she explained slowly. Loki agreed with that. Most other children had taken easily to swimming, but it had taken him nearly a full summer to learn how to tread water. At least he hadn't been the worst at it. Despite being older, Fandral had still been struggling when Loki was doing laps. O had walked out into the water far enough that just his head stuck up, and Loki kicked over to him.

"Sorry, where I am from everyone has to learn to swim," Loki apologized.

"A fisherman's child. You are far from home, aren't you, little?" O asked, and shook his head ruefully. "Don't scare an old man like that."

"I'm not that little," Loki childishly quipped. The others crowded into the water at the shallow end, with Glyn holding the smallest so she didn't go under. Loki amused himself by swimming around where the water was too deep for anyone other than O for a while. He guessed the 'warm' water was actually quite close to freezing but wasn't reckless enough to try to use magic to measure it properly with so many eyes on him.

"Logn, would you come further to the edge? It is not that I doubt you, but no one else can go out that far if something happened."

"When you can swim, all deep water is the same depth," Loki answered, but followed O anyway. This was tolerable. The water was just hot enough to be bathwater against his blue skin. It had been some time since he'd gone for a pleasant swim, and if he ignored the fact that he was most certainly in mortal danger it was rather nice. When he reached a place he could touch bottom he dunked under and flipped over in the water to do a handstand, just because. He came up to the sound of O chuckling and settling on a ledge where he could sit and still be soaking up to his collarbone. The floor of the pool was cut in irregular jagged edges and slopes, allowing for people with a wide range of heights to relax. Given the other room's benches, Jotnar adults must come in a wider range of sizes than other races - all of them huge.

It appeared that his confusion about gender wasn't completely ridiculous. The differences between men and women were very small, and several inappropriate jokes about proportions filtered through Loki's mind. All of the younger ones looked the same as Loki did, and the adults weren't much different. The other 'kids' crowded over now that he wasn't too deep to reach and he let them come. There were quite a few more of them now, and Loki saw another hurry into the room with what he assumed were his or her parents. They acted… ordinary. They were all blue, lined, and red-eyed, but their behavior was perfectly normal.

"So you come from an ocean district?" one of them asked.

"I lived most of my life on the coast, yes," Loki answered. It wasn't likely the type of sea they were thinking of, but half-truths would be far easier to keep track of.

"That's so far away," a couple of them agreed.

"I can't imagine going that far. I love it in Tonder," the one with the longest hair insisted. She was also the biggest 'kid' and just a little taller than Loki.

"I'd like to see it when I'm big," another one, perhaps a sibling to the tallest, asserted. "Maybe not to live there, but I'd like to go on a caravan trip."

"There's a lot of food there," another said.

"No metal, though. They have to trade for lots to things."

"If I had to leave, I'd rather go with one of the herds. The storms in the ocean districts are nasty and sudden; not like the proper seasons at all."

"This storm isn't in its proper season," the one that wanted to go on a caravan trip countered.

Loki just let them talk, speaking only when he had to. It reminded him a bit of a crowded pub, except everyone was naked. The young children babbled the way young children were wont to do, and some of the smallest were shockingly small. There was no lisp or lilt to the voices of those nearer his size to indicate a small child was speaking, and the question of how old they all were was still too far up in the air for Loki to guess. Fully grown Jotnar were also filtering through the door at a steady pace, and the large pool was filling up. The abstract idea that nakedness was not taboo in this realm had not sunken in properly, and the reality of his situation was making him jittery. Loki found himself backing up against the edge, crouched down so the water covered him up to his chin. Adult Jotnar apparently only grew hair on their heads: Most of the women had long hair, with many men completely bald. He could see some of them shaving their heads off to one side, near a trough that didn't mix into the larger pool. Loki's slicked-back hair was too short to fit in. All the kids had long braids or big bushy curls. He tried to remember everything he'd read about the lines and how they related to families. He could see a couple matching patterns of facial markings, but the arms didn't match like he'd read they should. He also saw that Odaric and Glyn had matching chest markings, meaning a maternal connection - so she wasn't his daughter?

"Logn, why don't we go get something to eat?" O asked him suddenly. "You seem finished."

"Yes, fine," Loki replied automatically. He followed O out of the pool and back into the changing room, rubbing himself dry as quickly as possible. "Where are my clothes?"

"Being washed. Here, you can wear this to dinner," O explained and offered Loki a gray woolen kilt. He pulled it on hesitantly. It felt very odd to be wearing so little. "Did you have something precious in a pocket, something from your family that you want to keep with you?"

"No, no, I just hadn't expected laundry service," Loki tried to joke.

"You are used to doing for yourself?" O asked.

"Yes and no. I usually know when someone is going to do something for me. I generally do things for myself otherwise."

"I'll make sure the others know. All your things will be returned soon," O purred, his rough voice dropping into a compassionate tone that Loki thought was wholly unwarranted. The older man reached out to trace the lines on Loki's chest. "Very intricate, little. You shouldn't need to cover these."

"With that storm, I had to cover everything I could to keep from freezing to death," Loki explained, but there was a sadness in O's eyes that didn't fade.

"We do what we must to survive," O agreed. Loki looked down at the lines that crisscrossed his chest. O's lines were pairs of rather simple geometric shapes. The lines on Loki's chest were in braided sets of four, curling from his shoulders and wrapping around his sides in a far more intricate pattern. "Come, there will be something fresh to eat."


	3. Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has gone undercover before, but this will push his abilities to the breaking point. With no real intel, deep in enemy territory, and with little chance of surviving in the blizzard outside, he must take on the role of a lost child.
> 
> But it is just an act, right?  
> (Important grammatical note attached, but it contains a spoiler so it is at the end.)

Loki followed O into the town proper. The hallways were wider and taller here, and the doorways were closer together. O kept up a running commentary about his home. Tonder was completely underground, cut deeply into a stone cliff-face sheltered by a glacier. They were near the 'top' of the city. The laundry was close to the bathing pool, followed by a couple of other workshops that made use of the cool running water, with those that needed heat farther down. Loki was able to connect some of the ideograms engraved in the doors to the trades within. Homes were interspersed with storage and trades, the doors shallowly engraved with simple patterns. When O pointed out his own door, Loki realized the patterns matched his chest and arm markings. Tonder seemed like a proper city, with a wide variety of trades and large population. The main hallway, or more properly the main street, was fairly busy, and the Jotnar that at that particular bathing pool were clearly only a very small fraction of the population.

The hallway Odaric led him along gradually sloped down. They came to a set of double doors with a simple geometric pattern and a sign in decorative script. Inside looked like a standard pub, except that the chairs varied in height. O found a chair that was rather high and pulled it along to a relatively small table in the corner with a chair Odaric's size. He then grabbed Loki's arm to help pull him up onto the high chair. While Loki sat rigid in shock for being manhandled like a toddler, O settled into the seat next to him. At least Loki didn't need to crane his neck to see him. After a moment a person with tightly bound braids and what could only be called a sheer dress bounced over.

"Good morning, O, you're late for dinner," she chirped, the vaguely gravely quality that all adult Jotun voices had clashing against Loki's preset idea of how women ought to sound.

"I went out to check the snow depth near the cliff side and found this lost little instead. His name is Logn," O explained.

"Her name," Loki corrected. O might have serious eye trouble, but surely the others would have noticed his anatomy. After seeing the size of the town, he couldn't rule out that all the children he'd seen so far had been girls.

"As you prefer, little ze," O chuckled. Loki just blinked. "Logn was lost in the storm for a few days, so what do you have for a sad stomach?"

"I have some fresh cuts of bison, but that might be a bit tough. Would you like us to make you a chopped medley?" she asked Loki.

"Whatever is ready should be fine," he demurred. Even with the magic of the Allspeech, he barely understood what she was offering him to eat.

"Are you sure? You're a bit small for fasting," she argued.

"I had supplies. That's why I stayed put so long before looking for help, so I'm not starved," Loki explained.

"Bring us two orders of the dinner special," O spoke before the waitress could protest further. "Logn was supplied for travel. She was wrapped in cloth and covered in furs when we met, to ward off the storm's fury of course."

This seemed to mean a great deal to the waitress, and she scurried off. She returned almost immediately with two cups - one so big Loki couldn't have held it properly with both hands, the other nicely sized for him - filled with a ruddy liquid. A tentative sip revealed a potent metallic taste. Loki had eaten blood before, usually cooked into a sausage or stew, but downing a full cup of still warm blood was just wrong on so many levels. Serving a child a cup of fresh blood did seem completely in line with the common opinion that Jotnar were monsters. He set the cup down quickly, sloshing some of it onto the table.

"What is…" O started, then sighed: "A fisherman's child, of course. When I was in the army, I traveled quite a lot. You are used to food from the sea, where the blood is drained away and then discarded as toxic, am I right? This is pureed fruit with bison blood to keep it from freezing. We call it Red Cider, and it is quite safe to drink. We do not have the algae drinks you are used to here."

"I… I suppose you wouldn't," Loki stuttered and tried to sip the drink again. He set the cup back down having only wet his upper lip slightly. With luck, O wouldn't notice, though he seemed remarkably observant for a nearly blind man. Perhaps if he changed the subject he could distract the old soldier. "I do have talents that are not specific to the coast. I know a bit about healing magic, and I'm not scared of hard work, as I said. What work do you think is needed to pay for my dinner?"

"This has been a hard time for you," O soothed, and Loki was glad he kept his voice quiet. There had been a number of people eating when they first sat down, and the room was starting to get crowded. Glyn and the other 'littles' had arrived and were seated a few tables over. It must be time for one of the main meals of the day, with bathing beforehand being custom. "Try not to stress. You are still small, after all. While you must be nearing your growth spurt, there is time yet before you need to worry over such things."

"That is more difficult a request than I think you realize," Loki chuckled. "I like to know what I can expect, and I will need to pay for things."

"You can't be eleven centuries old yet. Even if you won't be as tall as I am when you are grown."

"I'm only a century off," Loki cautiously gambled on rounding up his age. "It's better that I can support myself before I have to, isn't it?" O was silent longer than Loki was comfortable with. There was something going on Loki didn't understand, and he hated it. At least now he could assume he wasn't legally an adult until age 1,100.

"The job of littles is to learn. What do you not yet know, that you want to?" O asked patiently. Loki pretended to take another sip of his drink.

"I…" Loki fumbled, completely unsure if what he was saying was at all believable. It was worth the gamble if he could get into some independent study. Worst case, he was asking for the moon delivered on a silver platter and could laugh it off as a joke. "I have learned what I know through direct instruction. It was a very small village, you understand. We didn't have a proper library. Learning to read Jotska wasn't exactly necessary."

"Logn," O seemed ready to cry. What the fuck was he assuming? "Before the war, if I heard such a thing spoken I would have seen a troop of men sent to their village to correct such a horrible situation. There was a time that there was no excuse for such oversight. It is a hard thing for an old man to hear, that you cannot read or write." Loki blinked at this for a few minutes. Jotunheim practiced full literacy? Nidavellir aspired to such a goal, but many remote areas had few books and little knowledge of literature beyond oral traditions. Asgard and Vanaheim certainly didn't have full literacy, as those who worked as laborers far from the cities had little need of writing beyond the simplest symbols and their own names. Alfheim was too diverse to properly measure such a thing, with various languages and species. With the quality of the books about Jotunheim he'd read, he'd assumed literacy would be as rare here as among the slaves of Muspelheim.

The waitress delivered two plates while Loki was thinking this over. The plate put before him was almost as huge as the one she brought for Odaric. There was a fibrous vegetable of some kind under marinated meat. The meat on Loki's plate was cubed small while O's food was in large cuts, but it was clearly the same meal. He scooped one of the cubes into his mouth with a utensil somewhere between a knife and a spoon. The room was likely hovering around water's freezing point, but the meat seemed to have been seared or boiled briefly. Very briefly, as the centers were cold and raw, but he'd often enjoyed rare meat. The meat that O was eating looked to have been cooked the same amount, but the larger pieces meant it was almost totally raw.

"I know how to write some All-speech," Loki offered to try and make his situation seem less dire. "We had lots of things from before trade stopped, and I can draw well."

"That is something, at least," O huffed, some of the tension going out of his shoulders. "Few of the newer generation know anything of the common tongue or of the wider realms. You would have been born before the Casket was taken from us, and our connection to Yggdrasil was so severely cut off. Is your magic strong?"

"I haven't had much to measure myself against," Loki lied. It was interesting that Odaric's tone and phrasing didn't doubt that he had some magical talent, but instead took it as a given.

"There weren't any littles interested in magic where you lived?"

"No, not really. There were a couple girls I was tutored alongside interested in magic enough to become good healers one day if they wanted, but they were more interested in the domestic end and being good wives first. My brother is a dedicated warrior. They are all over eleven hundred," Loki answered honestly, omitting details that would identify his origin. He could maintain that sort of selective honesty for weeks easily. "I didn't have many peers growing up."

"I understand. Do you want to be a healer as well?"

"I just like magic in general," Loki shrugged. He didn't want to give too much away. He had apparently painted a rather dreary picture of his life without precisely meaning too. He was also eating his way through the huge plate faster than he'd expected. It was red meat, but the marinade wasn't at all like the heavy sauces he was used to in Asgard. It was a surprisingly light meal. Loki's appetite also shocked him, and he didn't think he would struggle to finish what he'd been given despite the large portion.

"You are the youngest," O nodded. "I can see why you would be in a hurry to grow up. You don't need to here in Tonder. This city is one of the best preserved since the Aesir couldn't reach us under the stone. There are scars in the glacier above, and on the bodies of soldiers like myself, but they never breached the ice to reach those below."

"I have to think of the future," Loki reminded. "It won't be that long before the storm is over, and then I'll be going back home."

"We'll see about that, little. We'll see," O said with a warm smile that showed terrifyingly pointed teeth covered in thick red blood. Loki suddenly felt dizzy as he realized he probably looked much the same. He gripped the tabletop hard to keep from falling out of the high chair, carefully controlling his breathing and trying to act natural. Without thought, he took a large swallow out of his cup.

Vomiting in public was a humiliating experience by default, and being tossed over Glyn's shoulder like a babe didn't help. She cooed and rubbed his back, carrying him out of the room swiftly. O was following, moving with one hand sliding along the wall with a speed he hadn't thought the old man could manage. Maybe he wasn't as old as Loki estimated?

"Take her to my room," O insisted. "She's not ill, just overwrought."

"What war stories have you been telling zir?" Glyn snapped.

"It's not that, Glyn. She has pride, but when I found her she was covered neck to toe," O whispered.

"What?"

"To ward off the storm's fury," O said, but Glyn only huffed like it was some flimsy excuse.

"You didn't think to mention that, or to have zir dressed properly?"

"Her cloak and furs had a jagged pattern. She only told me her preference for feminine pronouns after," O defended, "and didn't mention anything when I gave her the kilt."

"Ze's been covered, and zir hair shorn. Ze would have seen it as a kindness to be allowed anything proper," Glyn snapped back, keeping her hushed tone as they hurried along. Several adults turned to look at the spectacle, and Loki focused on not paying them any attention. He did wonder who was watching the littles if Glyn and O were both with him. "What could ze have possibly done?"

"I don't think it was quite like that. She spoke of her home, and it seems to have been nearly destroyed. They lost her close to Tonder. I doubt they could have done more for her."

"Ze should call zirself properly," Glyn insisted. Loki was glad they had reached the metal door to O's chamber. All the eyes following him had kept his stomach churning roughly. He didn't get a good look at the first room, as Glyn's fast pace swept them into a squarish room to the right.

"She should do as she likes," O countered. Loki was sat down on a large pile of furs in a bowl-shaped depression in the stone floor. Glyn stayed crouched in front of him, a sweep of healing magic fluttering over him, questioning.

"I'm fine," Loki insisted.

"I'll be the judge of that," Glyn snipped. Loki looked around the room while keeping tabs on what Glyn was doing. The room had white painted stone walls and rounded corners. All the edges were softened, like in the palace nursery, and the 'bed' he was in was centered along one wall. There was a trunk along the opposite wall and shelves on the wall opposite the door, all low enough for him to reach. The wall above the bed had a tapestry in red and yellow with a geometric design. The furs were thick and soft with irregular, natural edges.

"It's stress, and strange food," O defended. "Let the child rest, and give her some space."

"Well, it doesn't seem to be anything infectious," Glyn allowed. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was just carried through a crowded town like a sack of vegetables," Loki bit out.

"Better than sitting in your own vomit in a crowded restaurant," Glyn argued.

"I could have walked out."

"You were pale as snow," Glyn scolded. "You still are."

"I could have walked," Loki insisted. He went to get up and Glyn pushed down on his shoulder. Loki rolled with it and flipped up onto his feet. For a moment he glared straight into Glyn's eyes.

"Why don't you make sure the other littles get into bed?" O interrupted the stare-down by reaching between them and fixing the rumpled furs. "There is nothing physically wrong with Logn."

"Fine, fine," Glyn sighed. "If you have any problems call for me."

"I will," O assured. Glyn gave Loki a measured look before turning to leave. Loki and O remained where they were until they heard the outer door shut. Then O reached into the large trunk and pulled out two bits of fabric. "Now, let's get you cleaned up."

Loki took the terry cloth and wiped at his mouth and chin. He'd managed to get most of it back onto the plate, so he was rather clean. O walked back into the first room and Loki followed. Given O's size, it was more like a hallway with a couple of inset shelves. They moved into what Loki guessed was a washroom, and O set down a box to let Loki reach a basin with a trickle of running water constantly flowing into it. Once his face was properly rinsed off O handed him a stoneware cup to drink with. At least the water was refreshing.

"Feeling better, little?" O asked.

"Yes, sir."

"It must be past dawn by now, we both should get to bed. Come on." Loki followed O back into the nursery room and O tucked him into the pile of furs. O then hung the other bit of cloth on a hook near the door. "You can wear that tomorrow instead of the kilt if you prefer. I'll see your other things get back to you in the evening as well."

"Will other's react like Glyn did if I don't?"

"Glyn's mother was inter like you are. For most of our lives, she was my sister, and that was how she was called. It was only after she joined the army that she changed to neutral pronouns. Glyn was about three hundred at the time, so it is really all she remembers. She gets… upset that I remember my sister as a singer, mother, and weaver instead of a powerful soldier," O explained with a shrug. "I was assigned to the Capitol most of my service, and didn't see my sister much after she enlisted."

"Glyn is proud of her mother being a soldier," Loki observed, turning the thought over in his mind. Would Lady Sif's children think of her that way, if she ever had them? Was it only because O's sister was 'inter,' whatever that meant, and a regular girl would not be welcome as a warrior?

"As I am proud of my sister for all she accomplished. She never asked me to call her differently, even as she insisted others do so. Don't let anyone tell you what you ought to do about this, Logn. It is a great blessing to have all of life's possibilities open to you." O leaned forward, blinking his scarred eyes at Loki's arm. With more delicacy than Loki thought the massive hands could have, he traced the braided bands on Loki's bicep. Loki's eyes darted to the jagged lines on Odric's bicep, and he remembered vaguely from his confused comparison in the bath that Glyn had disconnected swirls on her arms. "Without the Casket, Jotunheim doesn't have enough life for many like you to be born, and there will be some who think you should insist on being called 'ze' for that reason, as if their needs are a burden you ought to carry. It is not your responsibility to make others feel more hopeful, not at your age. If such assumptions bother you, you can always use a bit of makeup to accent a few of the curves in the braid so it looks less like a ring."

"Or to straighten some segments," Loki guessed.

"As you prefer, little," Odaric agreed. Odin's reaction to seeing Loki in a dress flashed through his mind. The comparison brought back some of the dizzy feeling from before. Loki sat up and summoned a couple packets of dried fish out of his supplies. He handed the brown packets to O, who was clearly surprised.

"I told you I had supplies and things worth trading," Loki explained with a grin. "I can't take a luxury like make-up without giving you something in return."

"We'll have some of this for breakfast," O said after sniffing the package. "I've not had ocean fish for many years."

"I caught it myself," Loki said with real pride. O was quiet for a moment.

"I think I know a couple ways you can put that drive to good use. How about I take you to the training room tomorrow after breakfast? Some of the other littles will be there, and you can show us how strong you are," O suggested. "After lunch, we'll go to the library, and you can catch up on what you have been denied."

"That sounds fine, though I'd prefer going straight to the library," Loki countered.

"In the early evening there are classes in session. You can attend them once you can read well enough, but for now you will have to focus on what you are lacking," O explained. "You can join your peers once you have caught up."

"Agreed."

"Sleep well, little. Try to rest easy, this is a safe place," O soothed.

"Sleep well, Odaric." Loki laid down obediently. O reached up to the light in the ceiling and twisted the fixture, the slotted cover closing off the open areas where the light filtered out. A quick glance down to ensure that Loki was fine with full darkness, and then O left Loki alone.

It would be weeks before the storm would end. Loki was trapped here, fully immersed in an unknown enemy culture. The chances that Loki could get back to Ygdrasil's branches before the storm passed were ridiculously low. He'd been freezing to death even as a Jotun wrapped in four layers, and it would take some time to find the opening again since he hadn't been able to see exactly where it was. As a 'little' it seemed like he wouldn't have much privacy in which to make good his escape, in any case. It was good that he'd fallen into the care of a man with poor eyesight, but even so, this was wildly dangerous. Loki took several measured breaths, trying to drive off the lingering tension from his panic attack. He was undercover. He'd been given cloak and dagger assignments before; the All-mother sometimes gained enough information about an enemy of the realms through quiet means. It was not always prudent to send in a unit of soldiers to storm their hideout, as innocent lives might be in the crossfire. Panic was both wasteful and attention-grabbing, and he could afford neither.

It was good fortune that Glyn hadn't noticed anything amiss with her healing magic, so Loki knew he'd properly changed himself. At least the 'argument' over Loki's gender preference had given him a solid way to tell men and women apart while they were clothed, assuming that everyone kept their arms bare, and revealed that some Jotnar could either choose their gender like frogs or were both at once. That would have been a hard bit of ignorance to explain away. He hoped that his backstory of living far away in a small, failing coastal village would cover any future problems he had.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many languages have gender-neutral pronouns. English is not one of them, and neither is the Aesir language Aldska. I thought long and hard about how to deal with this issue in a society with three-ish gender assignments and this is where my research landed me. I realize pronouns like these are controversial, and there are multiple systems out there for dealing with gender-neutral speech, but I picked this set because I find them fitting for the type of culture the Jotnar have. I have also heard and seen this set used and therefore find it easier to remember. This culture would have them, it must have them, and I chose these for how they sound and how they fit into the culture I am inventing. Y'all are intelligent enough to separate this work of fiction written by a Straight Cis Female from politics, right?  
> My source and examples of the pronouns in context:  
> https://genderneutralpronoun.wordpress.com/tag/ze-and-zir/  
> Ze laughed.  
> I called zir.  
> Zir eyes are red.  
> That is zirs.  
> Ze likes zirself.


	4. First Steps

Loki didn't sleep well. The day/night cycle was not the same: the days were shorter here, and the Jotnar's nocturnal habits didn't help. The 'girl' clothing meant no pleats in the tiered yellow skirt with a thin strap to hold it up instead of a belt, a minimal alteration to Loki's eyes. O found Loki looking at the woven wall hangings in the central hallway before sunset and ushered him into a small eat-in kitchen. Loki sat on what could only be described as an adjustable stool while they ate the re-hydrated fish with bits of gray vegetable. O pointed out the water clock with its extra-large glowing dial and showed where it would point when the training room was available to them. Whatever made the water green must also keep it from freezing since Odaric's home was several degrees below the freezing point. After the short lesson on reading clocks, he gave Loki a small pot of body paint and a little brush to darken parts of his arm lines. While he was doing that, O began to teach Loki a bit of local history and geography.

Tonder was a newer town, built on the orders of King Laufey's great-grandfather King Ymir the Builder. It was roughly halfway between the capitol Utgard and the city of Thrymheim that connected the capital province to the 'eastern' half of the ring-shaped realm. Utgard was on the opposite side of the small planetoid from Thrymheim and had passageways to the 'western' half of the ring, with Tonder as the central piece for a new road King Ymir built between the two ancient cities. There was a shallow sea at Thrymheim, but the true oceans were all on two relatively warmer planetoids on the opposite side of the ring. Loki couldn't have a backstory that set him further from 'home.'

Several other children joined them as they made their way down to the training room, crowding close and even climbing up onto O's back. O kept up his history lesson as they walked, and Loki saw that he wasn't the only one listening intently. Odaric spoke of the glorious vision it took to build the city, and Loki could admit the big man was a decent storyteller. This was the only completely underground city built underground from the beginning, and without royal planning and funding it wouldn't exist. The forge was the main reason for the town being anything more than a way station, built so that geothermal heat helped fuel it. The main corridor - Forge Street - spiraled lazily through the stone and out to a lower terraced area halfway down the cliff. High Street intersected Forge Street at several points as a straight line from Utgard through a peak of stone that split the glacier above and down to the valley pass toward Thrymheim. It was built as a way to boost trade in the time before the Dark Elves' war.

The ice paths where Loki was found were alternate pathways to the surface used by hunters and traders going to other settlements, and of course many side-streets grew and branched over the years as more people moved in and made it the busy city it was today. Nearly everything was curvy and sloped; Loki's mind worked hard to map out the city's three-dimensional layout. It was worse than Dwarven construction: at least they made everything on roughly standardized levels and kept rooms square with the cardinal directions. This was a jumble of tangled ribbons.

The training room was a large space even by Jotun standards, located in what used to be a natural cavern near the top of the town. There was a large open space for sparring to the right. The rest of the space was divided into sections with an obstacle course dominating the room and various training equipment tucked in here and there. The littles were lined up by a couple younger soldiers and led through a warm-up routine. O stayed nearby, doing stretches and talking with others his own age.

The obstacle course was challenging and varied, with a sheer ice wall that required the use of their claws to scale at the end. Loki was able to keep pace with the front of the pack without trouble until he had to climb with his claws. He kept falling even when he tried to use the dents left by the others, and the coach had to come hold him steady before he could get to the top. Having all his weight supported by the claws on his fingers and toes was strange.

I am better than these people, and I can do anything they can, Loki thought to himself, and forced the weirdness aside. He was able to make up for the embarrassment of falling off the wall repeatedly when they moved on to 'self-defense' training, which was really just entry-level hand to hand combat. Loki was the tallest of the children assembled here by a large margin, and he wondered how many centuries older than them he was given how simple the training routines were. He even felt it was not too much showing off to flip Odaric when the older men joined in to pass on their wisdom since he suspected the man was fighting far below his full strength.

"You are quite a little force to be reckoned with," one coach laughed. "Come over here." Loki looked back at O, and the man gave him an encouraging smile where he sat on the floor, resting after his last defeat.

"Yes, coach?" Loki asked as he walked up.

"You move very elegantly. Someone taught you how to fight," he said. It wasn't a question, so Loki just stopped walking and stood at parade rest. The younger soldier smiled and rested his hand on Loki's shoulder. "They taught you very well. You need to learn to climb properly, but even without that, you are welcome to train with those on a warrior's path. Our lower-tier training starts at sunset and ends just before this class begins. Now, make a blade."

"Sir?"

"Make a blade out of your ice," he explained, demonstrating by growing an ugly serrated short sword out of ice in his hand. Loki pulled at his magic and formed a beautifully smooth blade that shattered as soon as he moved his hand, the pieces evaporating before they hit the ground. "It doesn't have to be perfect." Loki tried again and made a thicker blade, but it still shattered moments after it was formed.

"I haven't ever fought that way," Loki explained and summoned a replaceable pair of daggers. "I can vanish and recall my daggers."

"These could still be taken from you, but they look well made. Are they an heirloom?" the soldier asked.

"I helped forge them, actually, and with the runes in them, it would be very hard to stop me from calling them back." Loki tossed one down to demonstrate. It vanished and reappeared in Loki's hands with a sharp gesture.

"Very clever," the coach admitted, "but I don't think the person who gave these to you was doing you a favor. You clearly can use your seidr to call these daggers, but you need to learn to use it to control your living ice. I think you can make your own weapons quickly if you had proper instruction. Now I hate to take back my invitation, but you would have to concentrate on your ice first before my captain would let you join us. It hadn't occurred to me that you would be so well trained to use your body yet lack control over your ice. I should have tested that first, considering the trouble you had on the wall."

"I understand," Loki agreed. It would be valuable information to know more about their military, but he had a couple weeks and he might be able to gather more information while dithering in their basic training requirements than if he jumped in. Besides, he didn't want to act like some pouting child about to throw a tantrum because a treat had been taken away on the first day he was here. Maybe the coach was too used to dealing with very young children?

"Good, let's see how well you can use these metal daggers," he challenged. Loki took a deep breath and agreed. The young soldier was actually a challenge, and he took a gamble and did not hold himself back other than keeping his magic hidden. Loki's long arms and legs meant he was used to having a longer reach than generally stockier opponents, but the full-grown Jotnar towered over him. His agility helped him, the soldier was holding back, and in the end, the soldier was bleeding from shallow cuts on the arm and chest while Loki was only cut on one shoulder and lightly bruised.

"I like your spirit, little lady," he laughed and used a bit of his ice to bandage his wounds. Loki used healing magic to seal his own scrape out of habit, too used to his clothing hiding the act and healing himself as needed during any lull in a fight. A couple of the little kids commented on how perfectly it sealed. After a bit of prodding, he healed the coach's wounds and received a brief hug along with impressed thanks.

"Once we sort out your writing skills, I can take you over to the healing rooms," O spoke quietly as they ate lunch in a smaller cafeteria just outside the training room. "They won't let you help with anything until we have that sorted out, in any case."

"That would be interesting," Loki spoke, his voice dull and holding a vague note of disgust. He didn't think he could hide the extent of his skills as a healer in that setting. Knowing how to fight was an understandable talent for someone living on the frontier, as was a certain amount of first aid, but for an illiterate country kid to have the kind of training Loki did would be too strange. Even he had limits on his acting skills, and Eir had drilled certain reactions into him to the point where they were instinctive.

"If it isn't something you are interested in, that's fine, but humor an old man. Give them a chance and you might like it. If not, you are certainly a capable warrior in training," O suggested and pat Loki on the back.

The library was gorgeous. Loki stood slack-jawed for a moment before pulling himself together. How could barbaric monsters have such a shrine to knowledge? The ceiling was an arcade of arches with intricate columns dividing the bookcases. Everything was stone and metal, as was true for most of the city, but here the natural gray and black rock was inlaid with other minerals with rich color. The designs depicted various scenes of normal life, wildlife, or historical events. The mosaics were incredibly detailed, and Loki couldn't help but turn his head in every direction trying to take it all in while they waited at the main entrance.

This was a public space, not some lord's home crafted to impress, and centrally located. Suddenly the idea that Jotunheim had full literacy wasn't so far-fetched. The librarians brought Loki over to a fur rug and set him up with a slate and chalk. Other than the shelves, he didn't see any furniture, so the rugs and lapboards spread throughout the library must take the place of chairs and desks. They asked him to write his name. He wrote 'Logn' in All-speech runes with a faked wobble, and the pair shared a look before pulling out a tapestry depicting the basic Jotska alpha-numerals. Between Loki's knack for languages and excitement over the library, it took no time at all for the librarians to fall in love with him. He almost didn't mind how they came up behind him to guide his hand through the first set. It seemed he'd only been there for an hour when O pulled him away to eat dinner.


	5. Days Pass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki continues to be more independent and introverted than Jotnar think is healthy.

The next few days were much like the first. He spent the early evening learning bits of history from O, sometimes while sitting on the floor in a public play area near the training room where Loki insisted he was too old to use a swing or play tag. The remaining evening time was spent in the training room learning how to make ice and use his claws properly with an even younger group of Jotun children than Loki's first class. They usually ended with a bit of hand-to-hand in a very transparent attempt to sooth any bruising of Loki's ego that occurred when he watched much younger kids perform with much better technique. They even pushed him to help instruct the others in proper holds, which he generally declined to do.

After lunch at midnight, he spent the small hours of the morning learning how to read and write. The idea of bath time being a social event was still extremely uncomfortable, and he knew he was coming off as very shy if not phobic. He kept using the feminine clothing to try and have the shyness make more sense, but eventually realized there wasn't much of a difference in expectation between genders on that front. O was a rather traditional old soldier, and his views seemed to be quite standard for Tonder; from what Loki could observe the things he was learning about Jotun culture represented the norms, just as he wanted. The initial panic at having to go native here faded slowly the longer he spent in the library. It was still dizzying to contrast what he was seeing with the stories he'd been told in the nursery, but he'd read books contradicting incorrect common knowledge spread by the ignorant before. Even with the discomfort it brought, it had been a thousand years since any information about this realm was able to get out to the wider universe - he had a duty to learn all he could, for the good of the nine.

Unfortunately, the adults didn't think Loki's behavior was healthy. He'd spent all of Sunday in the library when O informed him Sunday was a day off for most people, fighting through some self-study materials for young children and generally hiding between bookshelves to avoid doing anything else. Staying in Odaric's shadow and ignoring his peers started to get harder after that. His initial clues were in the training room, with some older mages coming in to work with Loki on forming ice. They brought their own non-warrior students with them in an unsubtle attempt at forcing similar age-group friends on Loki. Once Loki had some basic words and phrases mastered, the librarians had much younger students brought in. They used Loki as an example of how quickly one can progress with dedication, and suggested that the best way to learn was to teach. It was a bit interesting to be 'instructed' by children three and four centuries old, but he wasn't about to connect to them as an elder sibling. He did learn how to write the names of all their favorite colors and animals, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

O had gone outside again to check on his snowfall station while Loki was in the library yesterday, and Glyn had taken Loki to dinner and put him to bed. Loki had finally seen someone 'pay' for one of their meals when the woman signed something with a list of the meals for all the people at the table. There was no coin involved, just the signature, so the function of their economy was still rather opaque. He'd thought about questioning it but worried that too much ignorance or curiosity about money would become suspicious. Beyond that, remaining mostly silent through the meal was the best tactic for remaining uninvolved with the other children, and he restricted his own comments to questioning how the food was prepared. They were all too happy to keep talking at him so long as he appeared to be listening politely.

"How much longer do you think the storm will last?" Loki asked O at breakfast on his tenth full night in Tonder.

"Such storms usually blow for about twenty-five nights in this district, Logn. Unfortunately, this one is still blowing fiercely and dropping at least a foot of snow a day," O apologized. "I don't think it will stop before the month is over."

"That's another two weeks away!" Loki balked.

"I can't change the weather, little," O shrugged. "It is Saturday. Why don't we try something new? There are lots of open activities this morning: weaving, pottery, painting…"

"I suppose I have been monopolizing your time. I don't need to be entertained every moment, you know," Loki suggested.

"I would be in the training room most mornings anyway, and it isn't like I wait at the door while you learn your letters."

"Anymore."

"It was just the first couple days," O chuckled. "You said you could draw. There is a sculpture garden lower down where you could do some sketching. It would be a nice, relaxing way to pass the time. Of course, you still need your writing lessons." Loki focused on eating his breakfast for a few minutes. He mostly tolerated to the food, but the Red Cider was still off the menu. Loki stuck to slushy vegetable drinks and had noticeably lost some weight. The Jotun diet truly matched the horror stories he'd grown up with: mostly raw meat and vegetables that looked like they were scraped off cave walls. He was just glad they'd become civilized enough not to gnaw on a fresh carcass like a dog, but even so, their table manners were rough. Most everything was eaten without utensils, including all vegetables, with the sporadic use of the knife-spoon thing for meats that had been 'cooked' in acidic broth.

"It would be nice to have some quiet time to myself," Loki finally replied. It sounded like he was finally being allowed to do something without supervision, and he would have to keep his best behavior to ensure it was a more common occurrence.

"Logn, I think…." O stalled by using his napkin and fussing with the plates. "When you first arrived, I thought you were overwhelmed by being alone in a new town and seeing so many people crowded together. That is perfectly understandable, but you aren't reaching out or making friends. Many of us are a little worried since you don't seem to be well."

"I'll be leaving as soon as the storm ends. I don't know what you expect from me, other than what I am doing."

"In some ways, you are so driven and very mature, but in other ways, you still think narrowly like a child. Even if you can return to your old village right away, it wouldn't hurt you to make friends here. In a few decades, when you are looking for employment and a mate, and I know that must seem like something so far away in the future, you might benefit from having friends here. Unless," O paused and smiled suggestively, "there is some sweetheart you are rushing back to. Perhaps some handsome young man, and since you are the youngest in your village you need to rush back before some other young woman convinces him you aren't returning?"

"I…" Loki sat slack-jawed. How could O have made such leaps of fancy? Wasn't Loki entirely too young for such a suggestion? "I don't have… I'm not… I just like having my own space, and everyone in Tonder seems to crowd so closely together. There is always someone touching my shoulder or brushing past me. I know that you can't see well, so I understand when you touch me to ensure you aren't about to run me over, but I'm not used to random tutors picking me up or hugging me for doing well in a lesson. It's different here, and as interesting as that is I want to go home as soon as I can." Odaric thought about that for a moment, and Loki was quickly becoming wary of how well the large man used his brain.

"Logn, they hid your lines and sent you away," O spoke gently. "With such a damaged village, with no younger children, they might be planning to abandon it as soon as you were grown enough. It is unfortunately common. I know, you said you got lost, but consider that you were traveling during this district's storm season. There is no reason for that."

"No, it was my fault," Loki insisted.

"Logn, I am not trying to hurt you."

"I left. I wasn't traveling with anyone; no one lost me. I got lost," Loki confessed.

"You ran off?" O asked.

"My family thinks I went camping. I was supposed to come back after two weeks, and I made a mistake on what path I took," Loki explained. "My mother is going to have a fit if the storm lasts so much longer than expected."

"So your family is waiting for you?" O sighed. "It will take you several days to reach a port. Did you stow away on a ship?"

"I walked here, I'll just go back the way I came." Loki gambled on the truth. The histories he'd been learning both from O and in the library indicated that walking such passageways was a common way to pass from one district in the realm to another, with ships used for bulky cargo similar to how Asgard's various counties were connected. It took exponentially less power to move within a realm than to climb Yggdrasil all the way to another realm, so it shouldn't be too impressive.

"You walked here alone?"

"I didn't mean to go this far, but the passage leading this way was so big and vibrant that I thought that meant it was well-traveled. I think it just meant that there were a lot of people here. I was trying to follow a path I'd been told about, but that passage was so tiny and dead I didn't think I could get back if I left the pathway," Loki whined. Everyone in Tonder treated him like he was still a child, so he hoped he could be a bit of a brat to get O off his back. Certainly, he'd turned heads with how adult he acted in the beginning.

"A lot of villages have been abandoned in the last thousand years," O sighed after a moment of thought. "The path you heard of likely led to one of them, and I can only say you are lucky you were wise enough not to follow the directions blindly. I am glad to hear you are concerned about the pain you are putting your mother through, but I am very disappointed in your judgment. This was incredibly dangerous. You could have gone the wrong way and walked off to your death in the storm. That sort of traveling is highly unstable and no matter where in the realm you came from, you should have known that."

"I do know, sir," Loki said, sounding as contrite. "That's why I didn't want to say."

"I'm glad you told me something of yourself. Wanderlust and a need to explore are strong instincts and come from a place of old wisdom worth listening to, but we must act with prudence. I'll show you down to the sculpture garden. You can go there anytime if you need some space," O replied. "Some quiet time to think is something we both could use just about now."

"Yes, sir." Loki helped clean up the breakfast plates, then grabbed the pad of grayish parchment he'd been given for his lessons. O let him borrow some colored pencils, which were likely intended as a gift before Loki's revelation given the fresh seal on the package. As they walked down the street, Loki couldn't shake the idea that O had been hoping to adopt him, and was now disappointed.

The sculpture garden was actually quite impressive. Most of the art was of various animals, but some were abstract collections of large crystals or complex geometric patterns. Loki wandered through for a while before choosing one of the more abstract sculptures to sketch. It was made of several types of stone suspended in ice, but cuts in the ice bent light passing through it into rainbows. He'd only seen art that played with light that way on Alfheim, in intricate blown glass mobiles. There weren't many people down here at this hour and those who were looked like families out for a walk. It was quiet, private, and exactly the relief he needed from the constant push to integrate and be social.

"Logn?" a woman called to him a couple hours later.

"Yes?"

"I am Jette. Odaric told me you walked here from another district. Is that true?" she asked politely.

"Why are you asking?" Loki asked cautiously.

"I am a Wayfarer Guide, and I work with some local caravans. I might be able to help you get home, but I also wanted to talk to you about how you got here," Jette explained, sitting down so she wasn't towering over him. That was another thing he hadn't gotten used to: there was very little furniture outside of eating areas. Floors of dining areas and washrooms were considered dirty, but everywhere else chairs weren't needed. People just sat down on rugs or bare stone wherever, with older people forming some ice to help them get up. O wasn't quite feeble enough to need such props, though he was gray enough to match Odin's age. "Logn?"

"I don't like talking about this," Loki said to cover his long pause.

"Were you angry when you left?" Jette asked.

"It wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. Once I'm home, I won't do it again."

"It takes a lot of talent to do what you did," she encouraged. "It could mean a very productive career."

"Jette, I just want to go home," Loki insisted. "I only told O because it seemed like… he wanted to keep me or something."

"He did," she confirmed, "you would be welcome to stay here." An awkward silence built up between them while Loki continued his sketching.

"He never asked me about my family. There is no better mother in the nine realms. I suppose a lot of people would say that, but trust me. She's perfect," Loki asserted. "I insisted on giving him something to compensate him for his trouble. I acted like a tenant and not a son on purpose."

"I understand why you didn't say you'd traveled here on your own from the beginning. Talent like that is valuable, and you didn't know if you had met trustworthy people or not. Had you met up with bandits, they could have tried to force you to aid them or worse," Jette explained. "Still, you could have told him sooner." Loki didn't justify that with a response. "I'd like to test your skills when the storm has passed."

"I suppose I'll be staying somewhere else until the storm ends,"Loki deadpanned.

"Odaric isn't angry, just sad. Unless you prefer to join the foundlings living with Glyn."

"Glyn doesn't like me, and she's crowded enough. If I'm still welcome, I'll stay where I am."

"And your travel skills?"

"That's my business. I'm confident I can get home as soon as the storm passes. I remember how I got here, so retracing my steps shouldn't be a problem," Loki explained.

"Traveling between districts can be dangerous. I understand that you have done it before, but you are very far from home. The passages are not stable the way they once were," Jette warned.

"I'm almost a thousand years old," Loki sighed. "At what point in my lifetime were they stable?"

"A fair point," Jette smiled. It seemed that a lot of things came back to 'since the Casket was taken.' Loki wondered if it was an excuse, or if there was some property of the casket that caused such extensive damage to the realm when it was taken. He'd thought it was a relatively simple weapon.

"Jette?"

"Yes?"

"I came here because I wanted some time alone to think," Loki pointed out. "I've got another hour or so before I have to meet O for lunch."

"Fine," Jette sighed. "I hope you will change your mind."

"I won't," Loki assured.

"Very well." The woman stood and left Loki alone. He looked down at the sketch he'd been working on. The part he'd finished coloring in looked a bit like the bifrost bridge, and he slashed at it with his claws before starting to sketch some bear-like creature.


	6. Not Adopted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Odaric have a short talk.

Lunch was a little awkward, and completely silent. No one had ever tried to adopt him before, even when he had run off as a small child. Odaric had thought he could make Loki happy enough to stay with him, and he thought the man did a good job for being a monstrous vision from Loki's childhood nightmares. He was a bit distracted through his lessons, and something would have to be done. If he had to live with this tension for two weeks, he'd be better off going to Glyn's rooms and sharing space with the half-dozen little kids she lived with.

"My father cuts my hair," Loki offered when they sat down to dinner. "I used an illusion to make it look short for a few years and had it down my back, but he noticed and insisted it be cut again."

"What had you done?" O asked. Loki had gathered that shorter hair at his age meant he had been disgraced somehow. Loki'd debated on how he wanted to deal with this and decided that censored truth was the best lie. It would give him a good read on the differences between Aesir and Jotun culture as well.

"I'm not as good as my brother," Loki shrugged. "He's just about perfect, and I'm proud of him, really, but it's hard to live with the contrast. Father has insisted I act as his son since I was a baby, but I've always been more like a girl in my hobbies and talents. I couldn't keep up with how fast my brother learned how to fight, hunt, and forge. Father said he wants me to be happy, and for my life to be less complicated, but I never fit in well with the other boys. He caught me wearing a dress that mother pulled out of storage and lost his temper. Once I healed, I went camping. I stayed on the hill for a couple nights in case anyone was watching, then I started on my way here."

"Once you healed," O echoed dangerously.

"It was an accident. He felt terrible about it afterward," Loki assured.

"Those kinds of accidents should not happen," O countered. "I have heard such things before, little, and it is a thin excuse."

"It was… He wouldn't have hurt me on a normal day. I was bleeding for the first time, and he didn't realize. I fell, and the bleeding got worse. I had to stay in bed for a few days," Loki dodged.

"You were bleeding f…oh, yes, that. Of course, you would start that," O blushed, and Loki stifled a chuckle at the universality of certain things.

"Men cut their hair short," Loki shrugged. Actually, most men shaved their heads in Tonder, but Loki's hair was too long to pass off as having been recently shaved. He hoped Odaric would consider it a local fashion trend. "Where I grew up, I didn't have the luxury of waiting until I reached full adulthood to start acting like an adult. We started taking on responsibilities in our seventh century - that is how my home is."

"Your father is wrong, Logn. I told you before, it is a gift to have the choice of how to live your life. Beyond that, it is primarily soldiers who shave their heads, not men in general. If you want to take on a man's role in a family or enter the military, that is one thing, but you seem quite happy as a girl. He also shouldn't force so much on you. You are still little."

"That isn't just him. Everyone is like that, and we have to be or we'd never get things done," Loki defended. "Why wait a fifth of your life to start being productive?"

"That doesn't make it right. Nor is it right to compare you to an elder sibling so strictly. We all have our own talents, and you are certainly a bright and able young girl. You were upset and rightly so," O sighed. "That doesn't make it right to travel so far alone, or to..."

"I know that, that's why I want to go home right away, as soon as the storm is over."

"I suppose you have to," O conceded.

"I took the dress," Loki admitted. "Do you want to see?"

"How about you wear it tomorrow? It might make you feel less homesick," O suggested.

"I… I don't know if it's appropriate. It's a bit different than what I've seen anyone wearing. It was my grandmother's dress, and she was really old when my father was born, and I think he's older than you are, so, it's probably extremely out of fashion," Loki babbled.

"That's quite the heirloom. I'd be honored to see you wear it, even just for a short time."

"Jette talked to me earlier and warned me that going home might be harder than getting here. I can carry quite a bit with how I vanish things, but the more I carry the harder it will be for me to travel," Loki lied, but O nodded. There were a couple of ways to carry things in a pocket of space, and most of them were draining. "I'd never leave something like the dress behind, but I do have some things that I can drop."

"She could help you," O suggested.

"I'm sure I can do it, I just think I should leave a few things behind as a precaution. Whoever usually sleeps in that room will have a few new things on the shelf when they get back," Loki prodded.

"My son died many, many years ago," O said without sadness, "and well after he'd outgrown that room. I use it for older foundlings who need their own space."

"Well, the next one will have some extra things," Loki shrugged. "It's nothing I can't easily replace, but maybe something that isn't as common around here. Besides, you didn't have to take me in. The least I can do is leave something behind."

"You are welcome, Logn," O smiled, and Loki almost wasn't disturbed by the sharp teeth.


	7. Walking on a cloud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a good day. Odaric learns a bit about his charge and Loki gets a heavily simplified explanation.

The next morning Loki dressed in his grandmother's cloud-like dress. He'd taken extra care in how well he washed the night before and fought to put the little braids into his hair the way his mother taught him despite his boyish haircut. He managed two thin plaits framing his face before he gave up trying to pin them back. He used the charcoal makeup on his arms as usual and used the polished stone mirror in the bathroom to paint his face a little as well. He lined his eyelids, which made his eyes look brighter, as well as the semi-circular lines on his forehead. The lines on his face were simpler than the ones on his chest, and he left the rest of them alone. Still in sets of four, they didn't braid or overlap at all, but simply followed the contour of his face straight from the ears and chin toward his nose. The lines on his forearms and below the knee were smooth contour lines as well. He hoped he wasn't being weird, but the floor-length gown seemed much too formal to wear without makeup.

"Logn? Where did you go?" O's voice echoed from the hall.

"I'm in the washroom," Loki answered, and bounced out the door.

"Oh, Logn, you look beautiful!" O gasped. He bent down so his damaged eyes could better see the details. "Such a fine dress. These must be your grandmother's lines."

"I know she wore it, but I don't know if they were her lines or someone else's. I like how it moves," Loki said, pacing a little to show how the layers billowed and swayed.

"Like blowing snow," O purred. "This is very special, Logn."

"They aren't my lines, so I don't know if it's really appropriate to wear. It's really formal, too, isn't it?"

"They are family lines for certain, either your grandmother's or great-grandfather's, so you can wear them proudly if you like. Why don't you come with me while I do the shopping for the week? I've been doing it while you are in the library, but I'd hate to waste you getting all dressed up with nowhere to go."

"I'm not overdressed?"

"Honestly, little, I'm a craggy old widower with bad eyes. However, it is Sunday, and I have it on good authority that younger people need no more reason than that to dress finely. I think you will be in good company," O chuckled. "Let me change my kilt, and we'll have breakfast out today."

Loki must have lost his mind, but stepping out in a beautiful dress escorted by a retired warrior in formal whites felt good. Loki hadn't been to Market Street proper. He'd passed it a few times, as it ran between High and Forge street near the center of town and could hardly be missed, but he'd never walked through it. So much of the activity in Tonder appeared free and open to him that money was really only needed for food, clothing, and personal items as far as he could tell. All of Loki's education and training, even with all the one-on-one attention, hadn't cost Odaric much as far as Loki could tell. It was a little difficult to understand their economy given that everything from the laundry to the library was run by the local government and could be used by anyone without cost unless they were deliberately wasteful.

It was, therefore, a bit surprising to see how busy the marketplace was. The two stores on the corner of Forge Street were a grocer and a tanner, and he could see both were busy through wide, clear ice windows. The street was broad even by Jotun standards and very busy by any standard. There were no carts or stalls jutting into the walkway or peddlers shouting to gain attention. In their place were signs and banners in vibrant colors advertising all kinds of goods and services, clear enough evidence of the near universal literacy of the people. Many of the workshops were located elsewhere, particularly those who needed access to heat or large amounts of fresh water. As far as Loki could tell these were purely places of business, with every available bit of space being used to peak efficiency.

As little as he knew of Jotun fashion, Loki could tell O wasn't wrong about how many people would be dressed up. He felt better being more covered even though the blue of the dress was only slightly lighter than his skin. Many women were wearing sheer clothes with decorative cutouts, lace, or bits of metal and gems. Loki's dress was certainly more conservative than anything else he saw, even on younger girls, but it was also a lot more complicated. He also saw his first Jotun baby, and Odaric picked Loki up so he could see it better. It was stuck to its mother's shoulder in an icy little cocoon, the tiny little head swiveling around to look at various things. It locked eyes with him, giving him a curious and wary look. Loki realized after a moment of wonder that he was similarly hanging off Odaric's arm and scrambled back down to the ground. The mother noticed and gave him a pat on the head.

"You must be the new girl," she said, which startled Loki. Surely people came and went often enough in such a big city that it wasn't a point of gossip. "Were there many babies where you came from?"

"Logn was the youngest in her village," Odaric answered, and Loki frowned and shuffled his feet.

"It's sad how common that is," the woman sighed. "Life is much better here in Tonder."

"How old is it?" Loki asked. Its arms were tucked close under the cocoon, so he couldn't tell the gender - and wasn't that a wild thought to have sprung up so organically in his mind?

"He will be nine years old soon," she explained. Loki's eyes bugged. It was so tiny! Loki was quite familiar with Aesir children and would have guessed it was still under a year old. Odaric excused them and ushered Loki into a well-lit cafe.

The waiter gave Loki a compliment as they sat down. The food in this cafe was a little different than the cafeterias they normally ate in, and when Loki saw eggs listed on the menu he was cautiously optimistic. It turned out to be fully cooked eggs and fruit with some kind of mushroom, and for the first time in a long time Loki cleaned his plate. It wasn't some expensive or exotic thing, either, it was just that O didn't cook.

"I know you are a picky eater, but I can't buy eggs. You can't store cooked eggs safely, and I can't cook them," O apologized.

"I can cook them," Loki offered. "I know how."

"I live too high up. It means I have water cold enough to drink and clean with without fuss, but it also means I don't have heat to cook with," O explained. Apparently there were things Jotnar wouldn't eat raw.

"You have all the heat you could ever want living in your spare bedroom," Loki explained and held out his hand over his empty plate. He summoned a small flame at first and let it grow to fill both his hands. The heat was a little uncomfortable on his face, but as always his hands and arms were immune to the magical flame. "All you had to do was ask." O reached out in disbelief and snatched his hand back from the flame.

"That doesn't hurt you?"

"It's mine. It doesn't burn me any more than my ice cools me," Loki said and snuffed the fire. It was turning heads.

"You are ever full of surprises," O chuckled.

"Yes, well, I said I have the means to cook. I haven't said anything about the quality. You might want to wait until you've tasted it," Loki shot back.

"We'll pick up some eggs and some pans for you to test your skills," O agreed. Loki waved the pan from his camping supplies at him.

"I was camping when I got lost, remember? No sense in someone who can't cook owning a pan," Loki quipped, flipping it back into the ether. "I've got a pot too."

"You carry cooking supplies everywhere?" O asked with a smirk. "You really will make a good spouse some day."

"Hey, I also carry daggers, a tent, a bow, arrows, rope… Everything I'd need to hunt my own food and live well off the land so long as there wasn't a deadly blizzard that I didn't expect."

"You really are serious," O chuckled.

"Camping, at least where I grew up, is safe enough. Sure, there are predators, but I know how to avoid them. Sometimes I even end up eating them instead," Loki joked. "That is usually when I'm with my brother and his friends, though that doesn't happen often anymore."

"Well, it isn't safe here. There are all sorts of distasteful types that walk the ice looking for easy targets. A single child out by herself would be too tempting. The nobles do what they can to protect us and the soldiers work hard to track down the gangs, but hard times breed desperate people," O warned. "In any case, we have errands to run."

The cafe was not a luxurious place, and he was able to spot people signing for their meals as he had seen Glyn and others do in place of payment. Either this restaurant wasn't part of whatever meal plan they were on or the other two places Odaric went to eat had some sort of long-term agreement with the scarred soldier, because Loki saw Odaric use real money for the first time when they went to leave. The few bronze coins that covered their meal returned two stone chips as change, each carved with Tonder's seal on one side and an ideogram Loki didn't understand on the other. The round chips didn't look like the rest of the money, which was various polygonal shapes from triangles to octagons.

Loki swirled along behind O as they wove through the crowds. O stopped at a message depot and picked up a couple of letters from a lock box. O's pregnant friend Lao wasn't leaving the house, and he kept in touch with a couple of his less mobile army buddies via letters as well even though they lived in the same city. When the storms stopped, he'd be able to send messages further to old friends in other districts. He'd seen O reading with the aid of a magnifying lens before, and now he knew where those papers came from. Few common people had a letterbox, it was a higher end luxury O earned by being a wounded war veteran. Loki got the impression that the other veterans chose to write one another instead of just visiting all the time simply for the prestige involved. Loki saw someone with horns for the first time while they were getting ready to leave, and mimicked O's bow when the smallish person with banded arms passed by with his - zir - own mail. He peaked around O, trying to get a good look at the 'noble.'

"Something you need, Logn?" O asked quietly. Loki realized he'd pressed against the older man.

"I've never seen horns before," he whispered back.

"That's the Baron's firstborn," O explained. "The Baron is a good leader, and his child takes after zir from what I've heard." Suddenly O chuckled and pat Loki's head. "Ze's only a century older than you, you know, and with how complex your mother lines are..."

"O!" Loki gasped.

"I'm just teasing, Logn," O defended without any remorse what so ever. Loki tossed his shoulders back and marched out of the depot. A fair number of eyes followed him, and Loki gave his hips the sway needed to make the most out of the dress. If one pair of watching eyes happened to glow from beneath a pair of horns, then that wasn't his doing.

O took the lead again and brought Loki to a nearby stationary store that was rather similar to the shop Loki favored when he visited Alfheim's capital. On one shelf near the back, Loki saw a gorgeous blank journal. It had a butter soft green leather cover and smooth parchment pages. It was unsurprisingly a great deal larger than similar journals in Asgard but would be perfect for an illustrated text. While O restocked his supply of paper, Loki wondered what he could trade to get local currency. He'd never gone so long without having funds of his own, and it made him a little nervous despite Odaric's repeated assurance that he didn't need to pay him rent.

"Logn, I'm ready to go," O called.

"I'm right here," Loki said as he came around the shelving and joined O at the door. "Is there somewhere I could sell some of my furs? I've collected a lot of them."

"From all your camping and hunting trips?" O asked.

"Yes. I have some gems too," Loki mentioned.

"Something you are thinking of buying?"

"Perhaps next week. I don't want to be impulsive."

"Well, let's see what you have," O agreed. There was a bits and pieces shop with a significant crowd inside. They waited in line for a little while, and Loki's chin just barely came over the counter. The clerk gave him a very skeptical look before Loki pulled out a blanket made of white rabbit furs. He carried rough skins as well for trading purposes but didn't want to put something on the counter that was obviously from a red deer or another impossible animal.

"This is soft, but small," the clerk observed.

"Originally, I made it for myself, and that was a little while ago," Loki defended. O stepped in to make sure Loki wasn't cheated, arguing that a blanket that soft was perfect for a child under a century old, and big enough to remain useful until blooming. In the end, Loki also sold a sapphire and some copper wire for a tidy sum. Loki put it into a small cloth purse that he pretended to keep in his pocket but actually vanished. The dress didn't actually have pockets, after all.

They got the grocery shopping out of the way, apparently it was normal to have that delivered, which finished off the official errands. O took Loki through a couple of little shops just to browse, and Loki started to get irritated. They had developed a tail in the stationary store, and Loki wasn't interested in some little pickpocket getting close regardless of whether or not he had pockets to pick. He spent a little time pretending to look at some carved bone game pieces while keeping an eye on the boy and thinking about what he wanted to do about it.

"You are distracted," O observed.

"Just thinking about things," Loki brushed off. "This is a little different than back home." O chuckled at that, and pat Loki's shoulder.

"At your age, there are always busy thoughts pulling at your attention. Thoughts of the Baron's son, the shop keeper's assistant, the other little boy who is following us…" O trailed off suggestively. Every once in a while O would say something that made Loki question how bad his eyes really were. Odaric did have a decorated military career before the war, with framed awards hanging in his apartment to prove it. It might not take much for the military to consider an archer or some other specialist's eyes ruined, or perhaps the Jotnar might have different standards in general.

"I'm just a child that blew in from the wilderness," Loki pointed out. "I noticed we were being followed because I'm wary of pickpockets, and I nodded to the young man sweeping because I was in his way for a moment. As for your fixation on the Baron's son: ze isn't going to give me a second look, and I was only curious because I'd never seen horns before."

"You are a pretty little one. In time you will become beautiful, or handsome if you change your mind, and I am not so old I have forgotten what it was like when I bloomed into adulthood," O assured.

"I can't even read and write," Loki reminded the old man. "When the storm ends, it's better I don't have a reason to stay."

"Logn, you are smart and hardworking, intent on your studies to an admirable degree, and that has been noticed. There are many who will want you to learn from them when you are better at reading. There are a thousand reasons for you to stay, and you would not have such wanderlust if you had no reason to leave. Your lines show you have good blood. You belong," O assured.

"How does that make sense?" Loki asked. O took Loki's hand and led him to a quiet corner. He bent down to speak quietly in Loki's ear.

"If your family could afford a dress like this, they must have been wealthy at some point. Both the dress and your own lines have sets of three and four, so you must have noble blood, and from more than one side. Perhaps your ancestors fell out of favor, or ran off with a lover, but not so long ago. You haven't lost that connection. I may have earned a comfortable life in the military through skill and hard work, but these double lines of mine mean you outrank my family already," O explained. Loki just blinked at him. "It amazes me sometimes, the things left out of your education when you are otherwise so talented and capable."

"So, if I married someone with single or double lines, my children might have three lines in places I have four?" Loki wondered.

"That's a simplistic way to put it. That is almost how it works, but it is obviously more complicated. Jotunheim herself has a hand in these things. You have smooth sets of four contour lines on your cheeks and the back of your neck. All the marks on your torso are four and detailed, and your legs are striped and crossed with triple lines. Your lower arms are intricate flowing contours in fours, so your father is of lower rank than your mother, but not much. Perhaps his line is mixed. Your personal lines, both on your upper arms and thighs, are knotted fours in a regular pattern of knots - quite lovely and the symmetry of the knots is perfect as far as I can tell. This may only be two lines," O said, pointing at Loki's forehead, "but the design is Ymir's crown. Very specific, always two lines, and could have come from either side of the family. You are not just noble, Logn, you have royal blood somewhere. Your village may be struggling, but before all the chaos I think your family must have been part of the local lords."

"Ymir, as in King Ymir," Loki asked, dumbfounded.

"You are directly related to the royal family," O confirmed. Loki just looked at O, confusion radiating out of every pore. "Logn, you are perhaps familiar with the phrase 'scattering fresh snow?' No?" Loki shook his head minutely. "Consorts, lovers… and the extra children they sometimes produce."

"Right, yes, I just hadn't heard it called that," Loki gasped out. This was insane. His lines might be noble, but they ought to be jibberish. It ought to be just a translation of his rank in Asgard, and nothing that recognizable. O reached out and picked Loki up, shaking him from his frozen shock.

"Let's have some lunch. I think you've earned a treat," O said and refused to put Loki down. He was forced to stop squirming or risk making a scene. Loki submitted to being carried like a child until they were in front of a fancier looking restaurant, the architecture and signs of noticeably higher quality.

Loki did his best to read the menu without help, but in the end, he asked O to pick something he hadn't tried yet. The older man just smiled mysteriously. It was fully cooked fish. Loki didn't have to fake his pleasure. It was served with what Loki translated as mashed sweet potatoes and lichen, and Loki was rapidly cleaning his plate. O puffed up with pride, telling Loki a story from when he was courting his late wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off topic a bit, but Ragnarok was awesome. Without getting into spoilers: I think some of the people working at Marvel have adopted the fan theory that Loki wasn't in control of himself (for a host of reasons) during the Chitari invasion and his character is developing in a very entertaining way. At least that's how I saw things, I am probably biased and will need a second watch. Also, Thor got over whatever stupid infected him during Dark World and remembered that he was supposed to have grown and changed into a better man during the first film. Perhaps Jane read him the riot act afterward the way so many people have written in their fanfiction. All in all, the chemistry between ALL the characters was great and I'd be hard-pressed to point out a badly delivered line or flopped scene even for the freaking cameo appearance. This movie could have been another 3 hours long given all that happens in it, but it was cut down to just the most essential and most effective delivery. Brilliantly done!


	8. Changing Routines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki realizes that the people around him are much smarter than he'd assumed, and the shoe drops.

Monday marked a return to routine, and the physical activity helped Loki vent his frustrations. He powered through the obstacle course at a personal best, and it felt good even knowing he was racing against younger children. They hadn't mentioned the more advanced class again even though he thought he had done as they asked. He was still slowed down by the wall, but he didn't think his trouble could be that serious. Much of the training he used to fire off bolts of magic could be applied to throwing ice, and so as soon as he figured out how to make ice in the first place he had almost immediately mastered that skill. The inborn magic was simply a variation in how one summoned seidr, and he wondered why his real Jotun counterparts had to train so much to do it properly. Perhaps they wasted too much time playing tag and other nonsense? As for ice-based structures and weapons, his long history with illusions meant he had excellent design capability and only needed to learn to give his constructs strength and weight. Since illusions were only a shell, making only a thin shell of ice was his initial instinct. Filling them meant the difference between making a pretty curtain that shattered instantly and a solid wall that could stop a charging foe. Changing that ingrained habit was hard, and the energy used to make solid things was exceptionally draining by comparison. They kept doing training with partners for the various exercises, and Loki kept ignoring his partners except for what was necessary for the task at hand.

Odaric must have said something to the librarians about his lack of self-knowledge because they shifted topics from words used in daily life to basic anatomy and health education. He learned to spell and identify all the major internal organs and tried not to get into too much detail about how they all worked. In a **very** general sense, all the children of Yggdrasil were variations on the same template. That was what made their life force compatible enough to be shared through the world tree. He'd had long philosophical discussions on the various theories that explained this phenomenon with Tolfdir. Had they all evolved separately to absorb and exploit the incoming light of Yggdrasil, or had the world tree seeded the various realms and allowed for interbreeding in prehistory? It soothed some of his unease to tread that theoretical ground again, if only in his own mind. Besides, monstrous or not they were made of fallible organs; Loki now knew more about where a small slice could be a life-threatening wound.

In any case, Loki now had a more detailed understanding of how Jotnar were put together and their general life-cycle. It was impossible to cover his ignorance of their puberty - and that was a very uncomfortable two hours of verbal gymnastics - the growth spurt or blooming he'd heard mentioned as an impending life event was apparently rather sudden after a long steady growth, explaining the gap in size between the smallest adults and 'children' Loki's age. Given his work in the courts, he had to appreciate a physiology that made the more physical aspects of sexual abuse neigh on impossible, even if the cartilage shell he'd mistaken for a girl's parts had confused him when he first transformed. Originally a hard bone plate, it slowly eroded over a child's development into cartilage. This would melt away and 'bloom like a flower' in as short a time as a week when one reached proper physical maturity. Until then it partially protected those sensitive parts from damage by holding them inside the body cavity. Oddly, courting started much earlier than most other races would ever permit, with long romances starting in childhood being quite common. Loki supposed that parents could give his age peers a lot more freedom to flirt when one's purity was a non-issue. Learning that grown women could choose to conceive or not without aid from additional spells even several weeks after the fact had been the end of his ability to cope with the conversation, and he begged off further discussion for the time being.

Loki had ended up borrowing an age-appropriate romance novel one of his tutors suggested in a bid to seem less suspicious. He could see in their faces that it was very abnormal for him to have been so disinterested, and he tried his best to play it off as a previous lack of options and focus on other things. No one thought he'd have an easy time reading it given that his literacy level was still so far behind books written for those his age, but it would be a nice change of pace to decipher some fiction. He even toyed with the idea of using a copy spell on it, but he didn't have enough blank pages in any of the journals he brought to make a permanent copy, and a conjured one would surely disintegrate well before he got home.

On Wednesday O took Loki to a very busy place deep in the city. The central room was staffed with government workers who kept track of the various public services. Neat, rounded desks were laid out in a large room in a design that would look like dogwood flowers from above: each cluster of desks surrounding one of the many pillars that held up the roof. The low desks and the Jotnar seated behind them were mostly shielded from view by short frosty barriers that gave each one a little bit of privacy. While Odaric turned in the round chips he'd gotten from the restaurants Loki was able to peek at some kind of bank account information O reviewed with his magnifying lens. He couldn't read well enough to make proper sense of it, but supposed that this was the pension Odaric lived off with payments being made directly from the pension to the cafes and cafeterias where he ate. Loki saw several horned people walking purposefully in different directions as he waited for the clerk to finish. There were few proper offices, some bunched in a central area and others along the outer walls. Most he could see into looked like they were for general use by whoever was in need at the time, their doors open to reveal a complete lack of personal clutter or decoration. They reminded him more of the public study areas in the Mage's Wing than anything else.

When they were finished at the veteran services counter O took them to one such room. Loki and O sat down on the cushioned floor in front of a low desk decorated only by the number 43. It was occupied by a cheerful woman in a bright white sheer smock. She greeted them and apologized for making them wait while she carefully sorted the bits of paperwork on her desk into one leather tube, then pulled out a second tube and opened it. Loki spent the time calculating various escape routes and calculating how many the guards were stationed in the main area, as this looked like the end of his charade.

"This is mostly a formality since you will be leaving us when the storm clears," she began without introduction. That happened a lot and wasn't considered rude for someone of higher rank. What need did you have of knowing someone's exact name right away when you would see their bloodline written right on their body, particularly if those lines were of a vastly different class? There were enough descriptive words in their vocabulary that looking someone up by lines alone was actually efficient, and important enough that how to write them was included in his first week of lessons. Covering those lines while in a city was a form of lying in an of itself. "In any case, the storm has gone on for so long that we need to have it done. How old are you?" Odaric nodded at Loki in encouragement.

"Nine hundred and forty-seven," Loki supplied, causing Odaric to give him a stern look.

"Right, well, were you born before or after the war ended?"

"The same day," Loki supplied honestly. If he was properly caught, he'd have to hope they would keep him for ransom, and that meant giving up some proper details. If Odaric was irritated at how much he'd rounded up his age, that would only be an issue if this wasn't meant to unmask him as a spy. It would lose him a lot of political capital in Asgard if he was ransomed, but it would most likely keep him alive.

"Pardon?"

"I was born on the same day it ended," Loki clarified.

"Well, that is a rare case," the woman pouted, looking down at the form she was filling out. "I'll put you down as a war birth." Her pen scratched on the parchment for a few moments. "Your name?"

"Logn."

"Logn…," she said expectantly, and not quite correctly.

"L-O-G-N, not Logan. Pronounced more like describing a rope," Loki corrected. _Or like the word for lie on Vanaheim_ , he thought.

"Young one, this is a big city. We have a lot of records. What is your after name?"

"I don't use one," Loki shrugged. "There are a few people my Father's age that call me Loptr, but he hates it and I'm not terribly fond of it either." He'd gathered that Jotnar native to this district used patronymic traditions the same as most Aesir, in contrast to the surname system used on Alfheim, but some of Jotunheim's previous segmentation into different nations still showed through in a mix of naming traditions. O was actually Odaric Copperclaw, his surname handed down from some highborn ancestor from the Ironwood district. Others were like the commoners on Vanaheim and preferred the name of their street, farm, or village. However, royalty was ever the exception. Odinson was a description of who Loki was, but not part of his legal name. Loki was simply 'Prince Loki of Asgard' or perhaps 'Loki, God of Insert Vaguely Insulting Thing He's Known For Here.' Mostly Mischief, Lies, Fire, or Illusions.

"Little, you need to give her your other name," O gruffly chastised.

"I only have one name," Loki insisted.

"Fine," the woman huffed, "Logn of the Storm."

"Absolutely not!" Loki balked. Thor was the Thunderer, and Loki hadn't gone all the way to another realm to get shoved into Thor's shadow.

"Give me a proper answer, then."

"Well, it's a big decision to make without any notice, to pick a new name," Loki stalled. He'd always been named by others, even as Thor and his peers had chosen how they would be known. His mind spun and caught on the wild magic he'd been playing with in the hills. That had been something born out of himself. Still, it was unfinished, didn't fit, and was hardly easy to describe. "Logn the Traveler or… Logn of the Paths?" The woman was about to say something cutting, her expression stern, when O spoke up.

"Logn walked the districts alone," the old man asserted.

"Really?"

"It is how she came to be caught in the storm."

"Logn Sky-strider, then," she countered. That sounded less clunky in Jotska than Logn of the Paths, though if he were to say it in Alfanska he'd alter it to Logn Pathfinder. He turned the name over in his mind, but it sounded fine in his native Aldska and he nodded his assent. In any case, it was a name based on an accomplishment he was actually proud of, and that was something. Perhaps he'd even tell his brother he'd been named Sky-strider in the hopes of extinguishing the Trickster label the Dwarves stuck him with. If Thor and his friends started calling him Sky-strider, even in jest, it was likely to catch on. Loki leaned forward to watch the clerk write it down, memorizing exactly what letters she used to spell it in Jotska.

"You walked here from another district. Which one?" she asked, and Loki took a deep breath as he sat back. This was where things could go spectacularly wrong.

"I don't know," he mumbled, bending forward in embarrassment and shame. "I wasn't taught about Jotunheim's geography much."

"You don't know where you came from?"

"It's on a coast of a sea. I know how I got here, and I can get back, but I can't match the shoreline to any of your maps. The way the paths twist on themselves and are so unstable, I can't use that either," Loki explained. He'd drawn a rough sketch of the natural coastline of Gladsheim during his lessons when pressed about his origin, and the librarians were stumped on where it could be. There was simply too much about this realm that was in flux. Three hundred years ago an entire district was abandoned because there was so much sublimation and so little snowfall that the planetoid started to break apart. It had lost too much mass to remain stable. The idea that an unidentified shoreline had changed enough in Loki's lifetime to be unrecognizable out of context had been suggested before he'd even finished the sketch.

"The white sea or the black sea?" she asked.

"We just called it the Sea of the Sky," Loki answered honestly. If anyone figured out he was from Gladsheim, they'd laugh at this clerk for not realizing what he'd just said. "So, probably the black one?"

"That's either the Pearl district or… No, definitely the Starway District," she said with finality. That was another place that had been all but abandoned, as it had been devastated in the war. It was a warmer district adjacent to the Ironwood named after the Starway port that handled a lot of inter-realm trading and had therefore been one of the first targets Asgard hit. The woman spent several long minutes writing, then asked Loki to stand.

Loki turned and moved his arms obediently so she could document all of his lines. She offered token praise on their complexity alongside a lament that such good blood had gone wandering. After much longer than he thought necessary, he was permitted to sit down again. The clerk then asked O to describe Loki's skills and behavior.

"Well, Logn has chosen feminine pronouns instead of neutral ones, but I think that to be a rebellion against being forced into using male ones up until now and should still be listed as childhood preference and not an official declaration. She's very quick, but no matter how smart she is her education has been strange. She can fight and has been well trained in combat, but at the expense of many other things. At first, I thought she was simply uneducated, and I found that Logn seemed very detached when I was droning on and making windy speeches. On reflection, I think it is simply that I was over-explaining things and she did not see fit to tell an old man to stop blowing the air around. She perks up at any mention of history, particularly the more practical history of how things came to be as they are. She likes it better if I don't directly teach her anything about how things work in the city. I started just giving her the opportunity to make mistakes, thinking that she might falter and realize she needed guidance. Instead, she would hang back and observe until she figured it out, or else she would start asking me questions. Logn opened up to me a little after that, and so I continued on that way. When I thought back on it I noticed that she can play along for a bit, not admitting she doesn't understand, and then resolve things by herself with very little guidance," O stated plainly. Loki kept his eyes shifting from one adult to the other. They weren't ignoring him, O pat his shoulder and the clerk nodded as if to give Loki approval to add a comment, but when he was silent they went on.

"In the end, I could clearly see that she has had a formal education of some type, with varied skills: Combat, tactics, hunting, fishing, basic survival skills for life outside of a city. Then there are more general things. Logn has excellent deductive reasoning skills, which have been honed either from exhaustive use or rigorous training. She chooses to sit with the exits to any room in easy view and is very mindful of her surroundings. Her posture and mannerisms are groomed in a way I recognize from my military training." Loki focused on remaining calm. Odaric hadn't said anything about the Aesir yet. He could mean anything by that statement. "Given the complexity of her lines, I would guess she is born of a family made paranoid by the war and headed by those with covert training."

"You think they have been training a child to be a spy?" the clerk looked back and forth between them rapidly, a high tension in her voice. O pat Loki gently on the back.

"She's very calm, don't you think?" he asked politely, and the bottom dropped out of Loki's stomach. He'd played right into the man's hand. "So calm now, but fidgeting uncomfortably around children her own age and outright refusing to go play on the playground. She said she was raised as a boy, and she knew nearly nothing about how blooming works for one like her. She was never expected to be a gentile mother or a wife, but trained only in those skills most fit for my old profession. When I, in frustration over her inability or unwillingness to play, got some art supplies for her I found her overly appreciative. She thought such a gesture had deep meaning, and, I think, that she expected that accepting such a 'high value' gift meant she was somehow obligated to stay with me. I would agree to become her formal caregiver, and we spoke about that, but she put so much weight on the issue that I was surprised by the intensity. She is fiercely loyal to her mother, no matter her mistreatment," O sighed. "I am getting off topic. In any case, her drawings are matter-of-fact and precise rather than artistically expressive. She has been trained or guided to draw from reference with lifelike precision and has not sketched anything from imagination at all. She doesn't consider herself mistreated, and thinks that her home is fine and normal."

"Yet you said she leaves it often on… camping trips," the woman read from one of the papers. Loki could recognize Odaric's overlarge script, but the paper was angled away from him too much for him to try to read it. She turned to Loki and asked, "How would you describe these trips?"

"I have all the training and tools necessary to live comfortably for a couple weeks even if I do not catch my own food, which I can also do. I've not been kicked out of my home," Loki clarified. "It isn't a punishment or lack of resources. I used to do it with my brother and his friends, but in recent years I've preferred to do my wandering on my own. They are older than me. Not by much, but a century or two is significant enough and we have grown to have different tastes. My father is… aging," Loki choked out, giving his story something real to ground itself in. His fiction would blend with the truth until no seam could be seen. "He… Odaric is nearly young enough to be his son, I think, though by a small enough margin that it would be a scandalous thing," Loki added a strained chuckle to the ludicrous idea.

"He is in excellent health, and despite being one of the oldest people I know he is still very strong and active. People are looking to my elder brother to take his place soon, and he acts like he doesn't realize what that really _means_. Also; I have a teacher, Tolfdir, who is very near the end of his life. It's harder to watch with him because it is more obvious. I don't like to see it, and we don't talk about it directly if we can help it. He has told me about what he wants done after..." Loki trailed off, and just before the clerk spoke again he chirped out: "Once, there was this all-powerful warrior who could take on any opponent and a master sorcerer who could run faster than I thought legs could go without magical aid, but now there are two old men. Tolfdir can't run very far anymore, or very fast, even if he is still a powerful mage and his staff is more set dressing than needed prop. By the time I am grown he…" Loki took a deep, dramatic breath, then finished in a small voice. "It will be before that. This decade, or the next. If we are lucky it will be longer, but such things are not for us to decide. He isn't sick or senile or in any sort of distress, but each year he is a little grayer, a little thinner... just, a little less." There was some irony in laying bare these truths that no one in Asgard would accept as a way to cover a different lie. Loki found it freeing. He would not be called weak or girlish for this effusive admission here, or not in a derogatory way at least.

"It is hard to see the old shrink away," the woman said kindly, "to see large men melt away like ice in spring, particularly when your own life is just beginning. Did you start your wandering when he started shrinking?"

"I had been trained to take care of myself from the start," Loki assured again. "I didn't see why I shouldn't use that training from time to time. I enjoy it. There is a certain freedom in being on my own, making all my own choices. It is full independence: I need only myself. Besides that, it is often beautiful."

"What is?" she prompted.

"Wild places. Untamed things and unnamed places. Life, and the sun dawning over a landscape few others have seen," Loki shrugged. "I have stood in places where no other person could be seen in any direction, nor any sign of anyone else having ever been there, but still not felt lonely or lost."

"Jotunheim is with us always," Odaric solemnly intoned. Loki hadn't yet figured out the Jotun religion, aside from the obvious point that they personified their realm as a living deity of some sort. "Ze guides you, when you let zir."

"You like animals," the clerk added, more to the point.

"To a certain extent. There is a herd we breed. I do know how to ride and I even keep track of their care in a general way, but I wouldn't want that to be my whole life," Loki shrugged again. It was weirdly pleasant to talk all this through. How often could one get a fully unbiased outsider's opinion of one's life? "There tends to be a large amount of dung involved in that sort of work, and I find that I don't enjoy smelling that strongly of anything in particular." The adults chuckled at that.

"You don't have wanderlust, then?" the clerk asked, still chuckling.

"Oh, I certainly have wanderlust," Loki countered, still smiling jovially. "I haven't stayed put longer than six months in nearly four centuries, but people say Father was much the same when he was my age." The other's smiles had fallen into a horrified shock.

"You… have spoken to your elders of this?"

"Well, yes. Mother was my first teacher and made sure I knew how to handle myself, so I wouldn't be subject to unfavorable situations. It was a bit of a shock to the others. I'd been tossed out of physical training for being too fragile, so when they saw me fighting in her style and generally standing on my own they were surprised," Loki explained, watching their faces carefully.

"Did she tell you why she taught you these things?" the clerk - Loki was beginning to dearly wish he could read the woman's name from the little stone plaque on her bag - asked.

"So I could survive?" Loki asked dumbly. "So I could keep up with my brother and his friends."

"She taught you gladly," Odaric prompted. Loki nodded. "As she taught your brother."

"No, they were trained by older warriors in the art of war. Mother is…" Loki wondered how to put words to what she was without mentioning Vanaheim, "the finest hostess you can imagine: kind, nurturing, and in tune with other's needs. She learned to fight in defense of hearth and home, but she has never been a warrior on the front lines of battle. It is a different thing."

"The front line is usually populated by those with the least mental talent," Odaric scoffed, clearly trying not to sound overly dismissive and failing. "It is those they protect who win or lose a war; the planning and gathering of knowledge that allows those simpler men's blood to be spilled for a cause rather than folly are just as valuable as those who bravely face death's shadow at the front."

"You would find my Father's values focus the other way," Loki supplied. "Though of course, he doesn't ignore such wisdom, either."

"Did she teach you because you had a tendency to wander off?" the clerk butt in.

"I suppose. I have always talked of traveling and dreamed of visiting all nine realms. She told me long ago, I was small enough I don't quite remember the details, that she hoped one day I could say I visited them all," Loki smiled. He could say that now, but he wouldn't. It was good enough to know he'd done it. Maybe in a few years he'd tell Mother, when the shock and terror of being trapped in this horrible situation wore down. "She told me it was a good dream, to wish for enough peace in the nine to walk all the realms."

"You have always wanted to leave home?" the clerk seemed disbelieving.

"I realize you like Tonder, but if everyone stayed exactly where they were born we'd have problems with inbreeding after a while. Maybe I'm a little young to be on my own, but people do move about," Loki sighed. This was getting a little ridiculous.

"Not children," Odaric sighed, rubbing a soothing circle on Loki's back. "Children are like seeds: if they are in a good place to grow they will root in place. If they are happy they stay planted where they are and flourish until it is time for them to bloom. Young men and women may move around to another village or town, particularly if they can't find a good partner, but not happy children, not before they bloom."

"Logn, only neglected and abused children get Wanderlust," the clerk declared. Loki could now hear the proper noun in her emphasis, the title of a mental condition rather than the description of a trait. "You may deny that you are unhappy at home, but what you do puts the lie to your words."

"You said your father hurt you when you unexpectedly started bleeding as one nearing zir time to bloom should," Odaric pointed out.

"It was an accident. I fell."

"He made you fall."

"I… I was angry. He was angry. We shouted at each other, that's all." _I nearly bled out from the inborn magic he doesn't want me to have tearing me apart._

"You fear him," Odaric proclaimed. "You speak softly of your mother, who shielded you by giving you these skills, but of him you speak only of discipline and the things he disapproves of. It is in your choice of words: always in the negative vein, speaking of what he dislikes rather than his likes or in a dismissive nature as if his disapproval of you is not important."

"It's alright, Logn, we won't force you to stay if you want to go home," the clerk soothed. "However, if you want to return, you will already be registered and eligible to live here if you wish. The point of this is to give you an option."

"I want to go home where I am happy, and I have friends and a life that I enjoy," Loki stated boldly.

"Friends that are all older and…"

"And I enjoy laughing at Alec's ever-changing love life and watching Tolfdir try to get him and Brelyna to stop insisting they can only be friends and nothing more for whatever stupid reason they've come up with this decade. Yes, they are older. No, that doesn't mean they are not my friends. When I get back I'm going to enjoy telling them stories of what I've done and they will tell me theirs. I'm not sick or abused or mentally wrong - I just like traveling!"

"That is instinct. You want to travel because you have not found a place where you fit well. That is Jotenheim guiding your path so you can find the best life and fit into the best place that will make you fully happy," Odaric soothed. Odaric, a retired warrior-spy who now used his talents to evaluate the psyche of wandering children. The man probably never wanted to take him in, it was just a way to pump Loki for information. Odaric tried to pet Loki's back again and he hissed through his teeth. It was an instinctive noise born out of pure rage, and the involuntary animalistic reaction only worsened Loki's mood.

"You aren't listening to a word I say!"

"We are," the clerk tried, "but you have been denied certain knowledge. We can't know what you are feeling now, or how you feel when you are at home, but we can see from the outside some things that you may not. We know Wanderlust affects only those children who want for something essential to their happiness. This is a hard truth born out through countless generations. It doesn't mean you are physically abused. It could be nutritional: when you wander you don't eat the same things you eat at home, right? Once the nutritional deficit is relieved, you start to miss the love and comfort of your friends and family. That sends you home, but then you are missing something from your diet again and the cycle repeats."

"I want to go home!"

"I already told you, we will not stop you from leaving once the storm passes."

"Good," Loki huffed, feeling deflated and trapped and silly. "When is that?"

"Jotunheim renews zirself as best ze can with zir broken heart. The storm will pass when it does," Odaric supplied. "I would not say the storm blows only for one little child, but ze keeps you here by blowing such strong winds. That means something as well."

"It is a stronger storm than usual. Perhaps another week, perhaps three. It has not been consistent, so it is harder to gauge its progress," the clerk added in a more matter-of-fact tone. They were double-teaming him; he knew it. Knowing one was being manipulated was one of the best defenses against such tactics. Loki only wished he'd figured it out sooner.

"You would not lie to keep me here for my own good?" Loki asked pointedly.

"When the storm ends you will hardly be able to miss the news. There will be celebrations, after all. You are welcome to stay for the festivities, but if your mother is waiting for you to return…," the clerk started.

"She is," Loki interrupted.

"…then you should probably leave soon after..."

"I plan to."

"…with an appropriate chaperone."

"No."

"This isn't negotiable."

"You are correct, it is not."

"Logn," Odaric began.

"I travel alone. I like being alone. I like working alone. There is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with my life. I got a little lost one time out of centuries of such trips. I won't make the same mistake again. You will never see me again. How are those hard facts for you?" Loki spat.

"You are angry. I don't fully understand why when we are just trying to offer you a place where you wouldn't need to wander to be happy, but please, at the very least send me a letter so I know you made it home safe," Odaric asked. Loki looked back and forth between them. Neither had said anything even hinting that Loki wasn't Jotun. Some of the reactions other adults had to his sudden appearance made more sense now.

"My Mother is the Goddess of Motherhood," Loki grumbled. That was what the common people of Asgard called her. She was the All-Mother, after all, and she did her best to fill that role to perfection.

"I can see that," the clerk said softly. "She taught you these skills and gave you this ability to be self-sufficient out of love. She is not sending you away, and I highly doubt she wants you to leave at all, but she made sure that if you did wander you would not die alone and helpless on the ice. That is true love of a child: selfless and pure, devoted to your happiness above her own wishes."

"Don't twist my words." _Not when she raised me according to what she'd read in books about this realm._ What sick sort of thing had led her to such an action? What twisted fascination? _She couldn't have known what wanderlust is to Jotnar. It is just a poor intersection of our two cultures, where good Aesir are always meant to be self-sufficient, and the Jotnar are more interdependent. Just look at how long their children stay small. They have to remain this way, how could they be seen as young adults while still small enough to be underfoot? This is just how they are: creatures of base instinct and intuition rather than intelligence, with weirdly extended unproductive childhoods._

"I think we are done," the clerk said. "I'm going to file this, and you will be registered as a wandering child because that is the fact of the matter."

"I am not abused."

"I do not have to put down a reason for your wandering," she informed him.

"But you have," Loki pointed out, jumping up. The closed door was at the edge of his vision without turning his head. He could bolt through it before either of them caught him. Hel take Odaric for noticing that Loki always kept track of that.

"I put down that you make bi-annual trips close to home and this is your first long-distance wandering. I have supposed nutritional deficit and/or emotional instability due to aging family group members, but not put down a conclusive finding," she assured.

"So I am either starved or emotionally unstable?" Loki demanded.

"Grief is a funny thing," the clerk said primly. "Like all pain, we feel a need to react to it. Unlike most pain, there is very little action that can be taken when a loved one is aging. In this case, both the problem and the cure is time, but that is not a thing we can do or a medicine that can be taken. It is hard to see death come for one you hold dear. Some, when they age, think that they are doing their family a service by going to find their end. Some become like children again, so rooted to their homes that they scarcely leave them. I have seen as much to support one way as I have another, and in both cases, I have seen children wander away from death's shadow. They recoil or lose some of the reassurance that home is a safe place, or their hurt boils inside them without an outlet. We are all different, and feel the depth of loss with varied intensity. That doesn't make your reaction right or wrong, it just is. My job is to make sure you have everything you need to get through whatever pain put your feet on the road. If that means letting you go home, then you go home - safely. If that means we will possibly see you again in a year or two, then I must account for a place for you here whether you use it or not."

"It is not my job to be your jailer or your judge," the clerk continued, speaking carefully as if Loki was an injured wild thing that would lash out at her. "Nor is it to be your friend. It is my job to be an objective outside observer with your best interests, and the best interests of the next generation as a whole, as my driving motivation for the advice I give. If I thought you were dangerous, or wicked, or wrong, or whatever it is you think it is that makes you bad or less worthy in your mind, then I would not want you to stay. It is not wrong of you to want to wander. It just is, and sometimes what causes that want is something wrong that can be fixed. Other times, it can't. Sometimes, we never find out how to stop the urge, and the child wanders until they are grown." The clerk was leaning forward, bent down from an impressive fifteen-foot height to look Loki in the eye where he stood as tall as he could.

"You clearly don't want to stop. The very idea is repugnant. You made that clear. That is fine. We are not offended. Understand that when we look at you, we see a child in pain. We would like to figure out why you wander so that we can offer you an end to your pain. If it is only nutritional, then we might see what can be done about the food in your village. King Laufey has structures in place for that, and though it would take an act of the crown it is possible. If it is only grief, then we can offer you a place to learn, grow, and see rebirth and renewal. Maybe you go home after seeing the diversity of this big city with all stages and walks of life on display and don't feel the need to come back. Maybe not. Maybe it is something more complex and difficult to explain, a feeling that catches it's claws in your chest when you try to put it to words. The thing is, _you don't have to know._ We don't expect you to have a simple answer. The longer a child wanders, the less chance they can articulate why they do. You have been wandering a long time, and for whatever reason no one has told you what it means. As I said before, grief is a funny thing, and the grief of a parent losing a child is legendary in its intensity. Maybe it was all your mother could do to prepare you for the journey, with the dear hope in her heart that you would forgive her for not telling you why. Our own King spites the Golden Throne still for the loss of his infant child, and that is a grief as old as you."

"The Queen lost a child during the war?" Loki breathed, shocked. No one had ever mentioned that. The two adults stifled a laugh.

"Both King Laufey and Prince Consort Farbuti are inter like you, Logn." Odaric explained gently. "Well, more or less. King Laufey is also a changeling, while Prince Consort Farbuti is a gifted Shifter, but both have bands on their arms. The lost child was carried by the King, and their firstborn arrived a few months before the end of the war. Ze was murdered by Aesir soldiers when Utgard was sacked. I met them then, they had come to search through the wounded and ask after their child. There… there had not been enough left for them to abandon such hopes. My eyes were still bandaged, but I didn't need to see them. I could smell the blood and dirt still on their armor. When they questioned me, they were…. They were not like rulers at the time, they were just another set of grieving parents hunting through the rubble and blood. That pain is what made me choose this path when it was clear my eyes would never fully heal. I did find lost children, wandering away from their so-called parents sometimes with their siblings in arm when they realized with grief what it meant that their lines didn't match, but after a century of searching that precious one was returned to the ice."

"That may be where you got your hated nickname, Logn, because of your birthday. The child was to be named Loptr, but there hadn't been a public naming ceremony yet because of the war," the clerk pointed out, "and that would also be why your father finds it to be in such poor taste. Ze is part of the Utgard Temple Shrine now. The ashes those monsters left behind was mixed into ice and shaped into a pair of black wings, so her spirit can fly to find other lost children and guide them."

"I…I didn't know that," Loki said in a small voice. "There are… there are princes, though, right?"

"Prince Consort Farbuti has given Jotunheim two young princes since then, yes."

No wonder there had never been a proper peace between their realms. If King Laufey blamed Odin for the loss of his firstborn… the idea that it was the King that gave birth tangled in Loki's mind and his imagination supplied a blue Lady Sif with a bejeweled and somehow pregnant ergi consort raging in grief while Odin denied the death of their precious child was his fault. There was no way Odin owned up to that without Loki knowing. The official accounts of the war were well known to him and they didn't mention anything about a royal infant. There was no way a King or Queen of any realm would make peace with another if the other kingdom didn't acknowledge a death in the royal family.

Then Loki realized his age and mentally thanked his father for ensuring a peace through marriage would not be likely. He had not been corrected on the gender of Laufey's children, so they were probably regular boys. Whatever else Odin was after by insisting Loki never live as a girl, it meant there was no changeling princess of Asgard available to marry off to another realm. In this instance, that was most welcome.

"We didn't… I mean… It's not like I don't know anything about that sort of thing," Loki amended. "No one talks much about the war, aside from brutal tales from the battlefield meant to scare small children into behaving."

"Given that you spoke so openly about wanting to wander when you were small, your elders may have found it painful to talk to you about this when you reached the appropriate age," the clerk suggested. Loki just shrugged. "They may have just been waiting for you to leave." That rung truer than Loki liked.

"That seems really stupid," Loki said bluntly, flopping back down onto the cushion. "Maybe they weren't calling me Loptr either, but just calling for Loptr instead and I misunderstood." That was certainly possible. The old Generals in the court were certainly bringing up the name to taunt Odin, possibly as another way of wishing Baulder had been born before Loki, or even instead of Loki. Loki shivered, he hated everything about his little brother.

"Little one," O began, and waited for Loki to look up at him before continuing. "Do you want to lay down?"

"Yes," Loki said after a moment's thought. He needed to clear his head before he could formulate a way out of his current situation. He hated the weakness, but any thought of Baulder and he was undone. Useless sentiment. Instead of getting up and leaving, Odaric instead lifted Loki from the cushion and cradled him. Loki didn't bother squirming and O pet him gently.

"This must be very upsetting, little one. Rest now, you are safe," Odaric practically purred out the gentile words, his deep voice vibrating through Loki. "Jotunheim has given us time to think and decide on our actions by blowing the storm down on us for so long. We don't need to make instinctive decisions for this. Zir wisdom guides us, and speaks to us through our hearts, but we need our heads as well or we are no better than the wild creatures."

"Do you think they wanted me to leave?" Loki asked, already knowing that most of the court did wish he would suddenly disappear.

"I think your mother wants to see you safe and whole," Odaric answered, but that didn't actually address the question. He kept petting Loki, and this blasted biology was wired to love it.

"I'm going to give her the biggest hug next time I see her," Loki declared.

"I would be disappointed in you if you did not," O soothed. Loki's eyelids were heavy, and it didn't matter that he now understood how the bundles of nerves running along Jotun child's lines responded to petting. He'd read about it in a childcare book from the health and wellbeing section after he'd burnt out his ability to be embarrassed learning about their puberty. It was one of the hardest texts he'd deciphered, though he'd pretended he hadn't managed to understand much beyond the illustrations when one of his tutors caught him with it. If Odaric kept it up and Loki didn't fight him then Loki would eventually go to sleep. It was a biological fact he was subject to with his borrowed form. First, he'd feel safe due to a release of certain pleasant chemicals in the brain. Then, he'd find it hard to keep his eyes open, like when a mother maintained a calming spell on a child too long. Eventually, it wouldn't matter how wound up Loki had been or where he was. Eventually, he would just… fall… asleep…

"… can't keep her against her will."

"… do our duty…"

"… might choose to…"

"… inform the capital …"

"Yes, of course…"

"… old noble house…"

"…could be bandits… bloodlines sometimes fall into…"

"No, too much pride for bandits…"

"Odaric, you need…"

"…eyes to see this. I know…"

"Children are so precious… magic skill… valuable."

"… value of children."

"… see it that way …"

"… those bureaucrats can kiss the darkest part of…"

"… limited…"

"… don't think it's right we have to make such decisions."

"We can't keep every child, but…"

"… death sentence…"

"… for everyone…"

"… done here."

"… speak again after…"

"If only…"

"… war left us with …"

"DON'T TRY TO TELL ME ABOUT WHAT WAR LEAVES BEHIND!" Loki snapped out of his light dozing with an angry hiss, ice instinctively sticking him to the bigger Jotun. Odaric looked down at the angry little ball of spikes affixed to his right arm apologetically. "I'm sorry, little, I should have put you to bed."

"We're still in the office?" Loki asked, releasing his hold on the ice shell and watching in fascination as the instinctively formed protection quickly evaporated. He looked at his hand and iced it over, making little spikes on the back, but they were nowhere near as solid as the ones he'd made while half asleep.

"I was just leaving, actually," O said with a hint of malice in his voice. The clerk had jumped back against the wall. Loki pretended not to notice, playing with his new trick.

"How did I do that so perfectly while asleep, but now I can't?" Loki asked as O stood up. The big man snatched Loki's ice-free left hand and walked briskly out of the office.

"Sometimes it takes a difficult moment to know what we are truly capable of," O grumbled. "It is the hard choices in life that define us."

"Did I poke you?" Loki asked, fairly sure he hadn't.

"No, you didn't hurt me," O confirmed, picking Loki up by his left hand and pushing the little one onto his shoulder. Loki used a little ice to stick himself in place, the secret of how the children climbed their elders and held on so easily and often without clawing them bloody suddenly obvious. It also made his failures on the ice wall in the training room seem even more humiliating. O looked at him and smiled a little through his frustration. "Other times, you can try too hard to do something simple, and fail at it by over-complicating things."

"So, we keep things simple when we can, and make them complicated when we have to," Loki suggested, aware they were only tangentially talking about Loki's new trick.

"Exactly so, little one, exactly so."


	9. Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki shows off a little

The next day Loki scaled the ice wall at nearly the same speed he covered flat ground, and one of the coaches picked him up and tossed him into the air for finally getting it. Odaric cheered too, loudly telling Loki that he knew _Logn_ would realize that some skills grew into other uses as one got older. It was meant as a lesson about not abandoning childish things just because they were childish, like hanging off one's parent with ice while napping. For Loki's part, he hadn't realized until yesterday that it was the children and not the mothers that made the ice cocoons he saw small children sleeping in from time to time. In retaliation for withholding important information, Loki stuck himself to Odaric's arm. The big man spun his arm around rapidly until Loki was dizzy enough to slip a little. The ice held him on much longer than his fingers could have, and he collapsed in a dizzy heap, laughing.

Loki realized he'd done something out of character when he looked up at O's startled face. The small children suddenly piled onto him, one loudly declaring that he thought Loki's happy-parts had broken. Another one declared loudly that that was stupid because people don't have 'happy-parts.' An exceptionally childish argument started about what a brain was that none of the adults did anything to halt. Loki got tired of it and experimented with his newfound ability to glue people to one another by sticking the arguing children into a single lump.

It seemed that there was an unspoken rule among the children of Tonder that gluing people together caused a snowball fight. Since most of the class didn't even come up to his shoulder, Loki was both the largest target and at a disadvantage when it came to ammunition. Apparently, he'd underestimated the fighting skill of his smaller counterparts, and whatever they lacked in ice-throwing and hand to hand combat they made up for in snowball creation. Loki's snowballs mostly dissolved into fluffy clouds that didn't hold together. He switched to conjuring pure color, the magic paintballs leaving vibrant splatters on his small opponents while safely blinking out of eyes. It had been at least two centuries since he had a color fight, possibly four if you only counted color fights where the opponent was throwing similar things back at him and not angrily brandishing a hammer, ax, or shoe.

One of the mages had arrived while chaos reigned, and suddenly Loki was dodging bright ribbons of magic. It had naturally devolved into a free for all, with a couple groups of friends spread out in a field of lone wolves. One of the smallest children got caught by one of the mage's ribbons and his whole body went plaid in neon shades of yellow and purple. Loki laughed at the fine trick and put a little something extra into the next couple balls he tossed. The older Jotun dodged right and left, but was too large to move easily with all the little children darting this way and that. Loki scored a direct hit and the large mage shrunk down, his color changing to ivory-pink. Four children screamed, six ran away to hide under the equipment, and the remaining nine dropped down on all fours and made little ice shells around themselves. Loki looked around at the scared little kids in shock. The adults all looked at him unkindly.

"It…" Loki stammered, "I came up with a color to counter neon yellow and purple plaid. I couldn't just… just copy what he did. In a color fight, you have to stay creative."

"Fix it," Odaric said, not quite as upset as the other chaperons. Loki stiffly walked up to the enchanted man. The mage's eyes were still his usual muddy red, but no longer glowed. His lines still stood out as a darker tan on his skin, but the proportions had not been altered - Jotnar were more gangly by nature than Aesir.

"I'm sorry," Loki offered, and with a wave of his hand, the mage was back to normal.

"That is not what an Aesir looks like," the coach boomed. "Just… that's close enough," he trailed off.

"Yeah…yeah," one of the children agreed. "Aesir have dead eyes. They don't glow inside because their souls are dark."

"It was close enough for my eyes," Odaric mumbled, then asked. "Where did you see one?"

"In a picture, I think," Loki answered immediately, trying not to listen to the chatter that started up among the children.

"Their eyes don't glow because they don't have souls," another was hypothesizing.

"In a picture, you think?" the coach asked, arms crossed.

"It must have been when I was little. I don't really remember," Loki hedged.

"No, it's because Asgard is so bright, it burns the light out of their eyes. That's why they can't see in the dark, all those extra suns blind them."

"You don't remember because you were too young." Odaric frowned, clearly upset.

"Father showed me what Aesir look like," Loki shrugged. "So I would know."

"I heard it gets so hot there people can melt."

"That's Muspelheim."

"No, it's Asgard too. Muspelheim only has one sun, and it's hot all the time, but Asgard has a whole bunch. When they are all in the sky at the same time people can melt."

"That wasn't funny, Logn," the coach scolded.

"It wasn't supposed to be a joke, exactly," Loki explained, starting to sweat. He'd just been playing around. It had just been a bit of fun. "It was just… another color."

"She obviously didn't mean to scare anyone," the mage butt in.

"What did your father show you, Logn?" Odaric pressed.

"I heard Aesir make their boys fight adults when they are still little, and if they fail they get kicked out of the house."

"No, it's not like that. He didn't scare me with it," Loki explained. _He terrified me with twisted visions of you, instead._

"What do you know?" one of the children asked, tugging on Loki's skirt. "What did they show you, to make you not afraid?"

"I know what all the nine realms look like. Don't you?" Loki shrugged.

"No," she said, and a number of others echoed the word. The head coach grabbed Loki's shoulder.

"Show us what they showed you. Make it a good lesson for your littler classmates," his tone was encouraging, but also a bit strict. This was a chance to educate the Jotnar about the nine realms, and as a Prince of Asgard he was obligated to promote peace among the nine. If he accomplished nothing else here besides surviving, Loki could do this right.

Loki took a breath and turned to face the open area, dissolving what splatters of color he was responsible for so they wouldn't interfere with his illusions. He pulled up an image of a woman in an ankle-length dress and buttoned shoes dancing with a sharp dressed man in a top hat, with a blended image of the cities of New York and Paris lacking the major landmarks in the background. Loki hadn't gone to Midgard often, so he didn't have much to pull from. If he was duplicating a lesson shown to him, he'd have to have detailed images, actual things he'd been shown or seen in person.

"This is a city on Midgard, where time runs so fast that nothing in this image is likely to still be like this anymore," Loki started. With luck, they wouldn't care enough to notice he didn't actually know what Midgardians were like a thousand years ago, and the composite image of the enormous year 1900 New Year Celebration he'd dropped in on would suffice. "Their lives are so short, they must always be in a hurry or they won't accomplish anything. They also come in darkest brown and every shade in between." Loki pulled up the image of another man and wife, the savanna behind them, and a third pair with heavily painted faces in a lush bamboo garden for maximum contrast. "They aren't unified, and have very different ways of living even though they have only one spherical world in their realm." The children sat down in haphazard rows, tucked close to the adults.

"Alfheim is an even more diverse realm," Loki explained, dissolving the image and replacing it with an image of his favorite realm to visit. He showed Tolfdir and his wife, surrounded by their children and grandchildren in their living room. Bookshelves lined one wall, and the other one Loki conjured held a large window looking out into their garden. Neat rows of vegetables and fruits were growing there, surrounded by overflowing flower beds. "The Alf are the primary people, but there are many races spread across a dozen moons orbiting their realm's gas giants." Loki pulled up illusions of pixies, wood elves, fairies, gnomes, and sprites in several color variations. "They say they are a unified realm, but some of the different races actually have full autonomy on their respective moons."

"Niflheim is the realm of decay," Loki continued. He brought up a swampy, fetid wasteland. "The people that live there are actually fungi that inhabit mammalian hosts rather than being mammalian like the rest of the nine, and so have an appearance that resembles… walking corpses." Loki dramatically revealed the 'people of the dead' by having them stand up out of the soil where they slept, bits of mud sliding off bog-leather skin. There were gasps and squeaks from his audience, and he felt much the same as when he taught the children in remote Aesir and Vanir villages about Yggdrasil. "Many of the other realms believe this realm is where souls go after death, and that somewhere in this place is Hel itself. The people of this realm live very simply, with no manufacturing to speak of or significantly unnatural structures. Their lives are very close to the natural state of their realm, slow and plantlike, and they have never traded much with Yggdrasil. The air there is toxic to most of the other races as well, so anyone visiting this realm unprotected will not last long. They spend much of their lives telling stories, weaving and reworking vast works of fiction that would take years to tell in whole, and passing the stories down to the next generation to remake."

"Contrast this realm without industry to Nidavellir, the realm of Dwarves," Loki introduced, shifting the illusion to show the royal forges, "a place of vast industry. The surface is covered in forests, but the Dwarves build all their cities and towns deep underground in stable rock. They are, of course, known for their forges. They have a king, but much of their society is a plutocracy with the most wealthy families being just as important as those with noble bloodlines. They are very, very strict about contracts and most of their laws have to do with business deals." Loki certainly knew that from personal experience. The children were leaning forward, excited by the vision from so far away. Loki let the point of view shift, moving through the geometrically carved levels of the forge and down perfectly straight stairways until he reached the central smelting room with its enormous crucible full of boiling metal ore.

"Muspelheim is the realm of fire and extremes." The illusion dove down into the forge fire to transition into blazing flows of lava and burning fields. He populated it with wispy red and black sorceresses and the massive horned form of King Sutur himself. "They eat rocks here, taking in nutrition directly from inorganic minerals much the way plants do and energy from the heat of their world, supplemented with oils and more traditionally identifiable food as special treats. Their world has twin suns, a close orbit, and slow rotation. The timing works out so that their 'days' take almost two orbits, and thirteen orbits are considered one 'year' worth of seasons. It's devilishly complicated, so never ask a Demon for the current date and time unless you want to spend the next hour doing math." There was a little laughter at that, and a small amount of applause for the representation of the realm's orbit he'd called up. Loki dropped the spinning orbs and put a spotlight on the huge red king. "This is King Sutur, lord of his realm, cursed when he was quite young by a sorceress to only have daughters to his line until one hundred daughters had been born. In this realm, only sons can inherit anything and women are property, so this basically ensures that his bloodline will die out quickly. After all, why would any noble demon court a woman who he knows can't produce an heir? As far as I am aware, he's trying to personally break the enchantment the hard way, and to that end has taken over a dozen wives - rewriting the laws about marriage to accommodate his plan."

"Wait, he has how many wives?" one girl asked with a scrunched up nose.

"At least fourteen, probably more by now since this is old knowledge, all paid for using rather brutal methods to amass the necessary wealth. Consider that they primarily eat minerals, so when they trade gemstones they are essentially using food as money," Loki pointed out.

"He hordes food?" a boy asked, breathless and scandalized.

"Poor people would literally not have enough money to eat," the one sitting next to him added, concerned.

"Well, the families of his wives are all quite wealthy now, as in their society men have to pay the woman's family before marriage," Loki quipped. He dissolved the scene like watercolors in the rain. The fire and lava turned to blowing dust and broken mountain ranges. Loki would have to take care about being obviously political on the next realm.

"This is the desert of Svartalfheim. Once, it was much like Nidavellir, but war ravaged the land until nothing was left. The conflict was an internal uprising at first, and they fought one another with brutal fanaticism on one side. The Dark Elves ruled by Malekath stripped the land of resources and when their armies retreated they ruined the soil so that the other side could not use it. By the time Malekath's true aims were revealed, he was king and several other realms were involved in the fighting," Loki tried to keep things as objective and clinical as he could, but he couldn't hide his disgust completely. He added tiny armies to the landscape recognizable as golden and blackened dots swarming each other, and great ships drifting down out of the sky. "King Bor of Asgard led the final battle against the zealots, where the Dark Elves led by Malekath committed mass suicide in an attempt to wipe out the Aesir army. They crashed all their ships into their own planet, polluting it with broken seidr and toxic materials." It was very quiet as the illusion showed silent explosions, the light of the rainbow bridge evacuating the Aesir army before that last, desperate blow hit them.

"It is worth mentioning," Loki softly added, "that not all Dark Elves wanted to unleash the power of the Aether to darken Yggdrasil and change her nature. Malekath twisted their religion, and over time started to truly believe that all other races of Yggdrasil should die and his people should inherit all the universe. There were also many that followed him without question. He killed his brothers and cousins in order to secure the throne for himself, but there were many good people who fought him and others who fled his reach. There are still Dark Elves alive today, scattered to the winds, but not in Svartalfheim. Nothing lives there now. Perhaps in another millennium or two, the fallout will calm enough that re-population can begin, but that is a long way off. If I live long enough there is the remote possibility I might see that realm begin to stand on its own again. It is unlikely. Not even the hardiest plants can grow there as it is."

Loki let a dust storm blow away the image, revealing a bustling open-air market. A forest of narrow, needle-like trees climbed the hill in the background, and small rounded stone pillars decorated and defined the streets. The children scooted closer together, having done the math and realizing there were only two foreign realms left.

"Vanaheim, Midgard, and Asgard all have very similar looking people living in them. Actually, if you think about all the different types of creatures in the universe, all the people living in Yggdrasil's branches look similar, but these three realms are the closest. Some people think that has something to do with travel through Yggdrasil's branches in the time before history, and have dubbed these three sister races. Some even suppose that Asgard originally had no people, and it was settled by Vanir. They are all different peoples both physically and socially, but the realms of Vanaheim and Asgard have always been very protective of the Midgardians. The Vanir are the least warlike and the most sedentary out of the three sister races. It takes a lot to move them, though once they are moving it can be equally hard to stop them. Primarily, they farm the land and export vast amounts of food to other realms. They would say they strive for a balanced life," Loki checked to make sure none of the adults were upset by what he was saying before continuing. "They fought a war against Asgard after Maleketh's fall, and they lost. The Princess of their realm, Frigga, was taken as a war bride by then Prince Odin Borsson." Loki shifted the image and let it fade into an aerial view of Gladsheim. The golden palace shined brightly in the center of the city.

"Asgard is a warrior culture with a fierce military. All men are expected to train in combat and there is a mandatory military service for every able-bodied man no matter what trade his family might have passed down to him. The Vanir do not have this requirement, and would say their artisans are more skilled because of their focus," Loki let the view fly in through the balcony to show the throne room with the King and Queen in place, rows of soldiers lined up as if waiting for a crowd to arrive for a royal address. He left the rest of the court out, as knowing what they looked like would be problematic to explain. The children were all stone still and silent, some with open expressions of fear on their faces. "Over recent generations these two realms have slowly blended together, starting well before King Odin was born. Some of Asgard's stricter warrior culture has crept into the Vanir military and the mandatory military service in Asgard has gotten shorter. The Vanir caste system was introduced to Asgard and took root, though in a much less strict form, just before Bor took the throne. While Queen Frigga is a War Bride, and in some ways considered a prisoner of war, by the time of the war with Jotunheim she had managed to gain the right to act as regent during the King's absences."

"So, she became the real Queen instead of just a… a winner's prize?" one of them asked.

"Well," Loki hedged. He was already treading dangerous ground, his hazy memory of what his parents looked like in their youth leading him to keep the images a bit blurry, though he did keep Odin's eye-patch. "I don't know what happened in Asgard after the war, but if she got herself named regent while Odin was away leading the army on Midgard, then she must have some power of her own. It shouldn't be possible for a war bride to ever get rid of that label, you understand. There are magical bindings in place. She was given to him because he conquered Vanaheim, and that will always be true, and women have very different roles than men in both Aesir and Vanir culture. She couldn't ever lead their army, for example. The men wouldn't listen to her because it isn't a woman's place."

"That's stupid," the boy at Loki's feet said. "My mother is in the army, and she's a great warrior."

"Those realms' women are fragile," one of the coaches spoke up. "They do not go into combat for the same reason you little ones do not. Did you see in Logn's illusions how all the women are breastfeeding? I don't know how long their children need their mothers, but that is a woman's only job in most other realms. Even on Muspelheim, the women's bodies are always either ready for a child or tending a little one. You can see it in their shape. It's more understandable on Midgard, I think, because they don't live long enough after their children are born for their breasts to completely melt away." Loki swallowed every objection and just listened attentively to his elder get everything about women wrong. He'd like the coach to see the bloody mess that used to be an assassin targeting his mother and then try saying Vanir women were fragile.

"The men and women have complementary roles, as they often do in other realms," the mage corrected, giving the coach a stern look. "Instead of working hard to find a balance in a marriage and leaning on their community for those things neither of them can do well, their choices are simpler because there are restrictions on their lives. While only the men have the strength and endurance for combat and heavy labor, only women can use magic properly or perform delicate work. This means that nearly any man and woman can come together in a productive marriage with a similar balance of duties, all while living independently of a town or village. The norm for them is not to come together as a large group to care for children or a home, but to stand apart and not ask for help."

"What about inters, like Logn?" one of the girls asked.

"Aesir don't have inters," both Logn and the mage said together. Then the mage continued, "I think there are changelings in other realms that can swap genders at will, but only Muspelheim and Jotunheim have true inter people. On Muspelheim, because of the worth of women, all inters are considered male by default."

"All the people of Niflheim," Loki added, "are the same. They don't have genders at all, and some choose to cut off pieces of themselves and grow children that way instead of releasing or accepting pollen. They don't have a concept of paternal bloodlines, either, because it's all blowing in the wind together."

"I don't think I wanted to know that," a prissy boy in the back said, his face scrunched up in disgust.

"Ewww… If you went there you'd be breathing it!" another squeaked, setting off a round of childish gagging noises. Loki wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment.

"What does a caste system mean?" another asked.

"It means girls have to learn from their mothers and boys have to learn their father's trade," Loki supplied. "There is some room to change, a potter's child could switch to another artisan career if the parents can find and pay a master to teach the child, but Artisans remain Artisans, Merchants remain merchants, and so on. In Asgard, lower families can move up if the father makes a name for himself in the military, and down in the case of some great disgrace. On Vanaheim, things are much stricter. Only by being adopted into the appropriate family can someone change trades, and in that case, they must give up the right to choose who they wed. Some other realms have different forms of social organization systems, like on Alfheim's second moon where…" Suddenly Loki was picked up and put on Odaric's shoulder.

"So this is what your tutors filled your head with, instead of normal things," O chuckled. "No wonder you got so bored of me explaining all the details of how Tonder is structured, I could have just told you the names of our Lords and been done with the lesson."

"Every city is a little different," Loki argued. "Even in the same realm, there are special rules and exceptions. Why would a completely underground city be the same as one that's all above ground? Besides, the other children were interested, so I didn't want to rush you."

"It is time to move along," the head coach declared. "Everyone, help clean up the mess you've made. No one goes for lunch until we've set things right." The children popped up from their seats and started clearing away the snowballs. It didn't take long before the coaches were resurfacing ice on the training area to get rid of the divots and scrapes that they had made. Odaric took Loki to lunch, but the head coach followed them wanting a word.


	10. What's in a Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki learns about the God of Chaos: Loki.
> 
> Edit: Re-uploaded due to a failure to properly proof-read.

Odaric herded Loki along the buffet table to a chair, rapidly dumping small portions of a wider range of food types onto Loki's tray than he wanted along the way. The head coach, one of the only people with triple lines Loki interacted with, took his time greeting the woman serving the food today. Odaric's partial blindness showed a little more than usual in his haste, with the larger man feeling along and keeping Loki in front as a rudder.

"This is a good thing," Odaric whispered. Loki was still caught off guard by how quiet Jotnar could be when they tried. "Right now the level of tutoring and training you are entitled to is based on my rank. I asked about the tools used to teach the all-speech being used in reverse to teach you to write, but that is above what I can access. Maybe we can improve that."

"That would be much easier," Loki agreed. "I could study books like those on my own, and faster."

"Then be on your best behavior," Odaric encouraged. Loki found the instruction completely unhelpful, as he was unsure when he wasn't on his best behavior most of the time in this realm.

"So, you are quite the little storyteller," the coach said as he set down his own food.

"I was sharing what I had been taught, like you asked me too," Loki defended.

"You did a fair bit more than plainly recite a list of facts, little Logn. You showed examples, made the transitions smooth and impressive, and phrased the lesson to retain the attention of your audience," the coach said with an easy smile. "You had a shaky start, but I'm sure with some practice you could become a great teacher or orator. There are other careers as well, ones that would use that knowledge in more practical ways."

"I don't… know what to say," Loki swallowed his reaction before it was fully out of his mouth. Jotunheim didn't have any connections to the other realms, gender roles were so warped here that objecting to taking a woman's job in his current circumstances was laughably impossible, and he had no real idea where he ranked among them with his complex family lines and pennyless orphan status. More troubling: What practical application could such talents have? Was it simply a hope for some future time when the trade embargo was lifted or was there need of such knowledge internally?

"I'm going to set up a meeting for you with a friend of mine. You are wasted in daily combat training; I have said this to Odaric before. The intelligence and magical skill you show clearly makes you more suited for other things, but I am told you chose this. May I ask why you train every day like this?"

"Logn did not have the opportunity to learn how to read and write properly," Odaric explained quickly. Odaric was still holding his first strip of meat speared onto his spoon-knife, having frozen it solidly to the utensil instead of just giving it a frosty shell to stop the sauce from dripping. "There were few options open to her because of that. I have been taking her to the library after lunch to correct that, but she says she can read the all-speech."

"That is a rare skill in a child," the coach nodded, taking a moment to eat some of his own food. Loki had no idea what he ought to be saying, so he focused on filling his stomach unless asked a question. "It explains how you gained the knowledge you have. Who taught you?"

"My mother taught me the All-speech," Loki answered shortly.

"She was wise to teach you, even if that skill is less valuable day to day than the common script," the coach praised, a thoughtful crease to his brow. "It will serve you well when you are grown. Much of the official business is still conducted in the all-script, and while it may seem unthinkable to you, we will one day re-connect with the other realms. There are jobs available to you that others can't compete with. Now, I understand why most would not accept an apprentice who cannot read or write properly, but I am certain there are those who will accept you if they know you can read all-speech. Some may even prefer you over another who cannot, even though you cannot read regular writing."

"I will be returning to my family when the storm ends," Loki pointed out. Even with what he'd learned about Wanderlust in Jotnar, he didn't see why everyone disregarded him when he said that.

"She wandered away from death's shadow," Odaric murmured. "Logn is quite desperate to get back home before…."

"That is even better," the coach assured, leaning forward and patting Loki on the shoulder gently. "We will have time to make arrangements. It does put a bit of a crunch in how much time we have to work with right now, but when you return you can come back knowing there will be masters with you in mind.

"What if I don't come back?" Loki couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Oh, I don't mean for you to return immediately. You can take what time you need," the coach clarified. "When you are ready to settle you can come back. It isn't like you'd be able to start a family in your little village."

"Why not?" Loki asked. The coach looked at Odaric, who looked down and fiddled with his plate. The silence stretched, and Loki sat still as the coach turned back to him, examining Loki as if he'd just declared himself to be a mushroom and would be taking up impressionist body painting.

"There are a number of things she has not been told," Odaric said. "I don't think it is out of malice. These are difficult things, and with what her education has included I think that her family was just a bit too optimistic. They probably weren't involved much in the war, and didn't expect the judgment Asgard passed on our realm to stand for so long."

"What haven't I been told?" Loki asked, feeling all of five centuries old.

"Little one," the coach started with a great sigh, "I agree that you need some time with your current family. Go home; finish grieving. Until you can, please listen to your elders and act as if one day, in perhaps another few decades, you will come back here. It will lose you nothing to do so, as the things you learn are useful regardless."

"Why, though?" Loki insisted.

"Logn," O cautioned, "you are in enough pain." Loki sat back in his chair with a huff. Odaric hurried him through the rest of the meal so he would not be late for his writing lessons and the coach would only encourage him to study hard and accept the pain of grief until it passed. Loki realized a dead end when he saw one, so he dropped the issue.

The librarians hadn't been told not to tell Loki anything, as far as he knew. Loki waited through the first hour of his lessons, focusing on the new words. According to his own estimation, he was doing rather well and was roughly as literate as the average commoner outside Gladsheim. All his contact with court documents, his magical studies, and the investigations he'd taken part in with the Justiciar had ensured he knew how to read and write languages from all across the nine. There was a point where each new system seemed to make learning the next one easier: Loki had powered through one language after another over the centuries, gaining momentum all the while. Language was certainly a talent of his, not that it was one worth much in the eyes of the warrior class. Still, there was a grain of truth to his 'God of Lies' moniker, even if it wasn't the insult most people smeared him with.

"Can I ask you something?" Loki asked.

"That is why you are here," the librarian pointed out gently.

"Everyone seems to assume that either I will stay here forever, or I'll come back after a little while," Loki began. "Even when I say I plan to go home and stay there, everyone just keeps going on as if I'm just being a silly little one who doesn't know anything. I know there are things about how this realm turns that I have not yet encountered, and life here in a city untouched by the war would probably be easier than one out in the wild ruins of what once was, but why is everyone so sure I'll come back? Why do people say I can't go home?"

"Of course you can go home," the librarian seemed shocked, a hint of panic in his voice as his hands fluttered and his eyes darted around the room. "You can stay there until you are grown if your wandering is satisfied, and when it is time you can come back."

"Time for what?" Loki pressed.

"Time to find a mate," he answered with a little blush. "You'll want children eventually." Loki waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't.

"But that's what I don't understand. Why would I have to come back here for that?" the librarian brought both hands to his face, covering it for a moment while he took three deep breaths. When he lowered them Loki locked eyes with him, reaching out with one of his oldest spells. "Tell me the truth."

"The realm suffers without the Casket to anchor zir magic. This means little ones like yourself - those with two genders - are rarely born anymore, and when they are they… they don't live. You need powerful magic to sustain your body, or it will degrade. That comes partially from within, generated from the food you eat…"

"…and partially it is absorbed from the wild natural magic that surrounds us, kept bright by Yggdrasil's branches and purified by her roots." Loki finished the novice's lesson automatically, barely containing his shock. None of the other 'littles' he encountered had banded arms and he'd met nearly everyone younger than him in the city thanks to the adult's campaign to try and find him a friend. He'd noticed that, and the lack of banded arms in general considering how prevalent they were in the histories he was told. How come he'd never questioned it? He'd gathered that it was more common among the high-born, almost a prerequisite for proper nobility, but clearly not exclusive. Perhaps more urgently, how much weight had he lost since he came here?

"An eloquent way to put it," he soothed, petting Loki's arm, "this is why those with banded arms are respected: your connection to magic through Jotunheim is always stronger than those without, though we all have a connection to zir. It was written on your body before you were born by Jotunheim zirself that you would have strong magical talent, and in return for that responsibility to others, ze gave you the choice of how you will use it and how you will live. Unfortunately, that close connection to zir also means that your strength is tied to zirs. I think that the emphasis placed on practical magic above even learning to read and write basic Jotska was meant to ensure you grew up healthy. Training you to have such tight control of your magic means you have thrived where others like yourself have not been so lucky."

"What about adults?" Loki asked, his curiosity running on automatic while the rest of his mind struggled to fit this new knowledge into his understanding of the nine realms.

"They," the librarian hesitated, huffed, and started over. "So many died in the war. In a way that was a mercy. If more of them survived, there would be less ambient magic to go around and more of these illnesses. The Aesir targeted those who were most apt to fight back in the first wave. The first strike on Jotunheim was unexpected; after all, King Laufey had surrendered on Midgard. Why did they need to attack us here as well? King Odin is older and didn't trust the word of our young King Laufey. He called him a greedy boy, and thought the surrender was some kind of plot."

"That's a bit off-topic, isn't it?" Loki prodded, filing away the surrender and surprise attack for later research.

"Magic is life. The special spark that differentiates a lump of rock and ice from a living plant or animal is magic in its raw and pure form. The loss of it means a loss of vitality. The old die younger, children are fewer, and… small villages like yours can't have more children," the librarian explained gently. "We are lucky here in Tonder, we are not as badly affected because of the natural geothermal activity that fuels our local ecology and the forge that uses it fueling our economy."

"You can't mean stillborn children are more common than healthy ones?" Loki asked, reinforcing his question with his magic. The librarian just nodded a glitter of restrained tears in his softly glowing red eyes. It took a moment for him to formulate his next question. "Before the war… before the casket was taken… what was different?"

"That is a much larger question than you imagine. Jotunheim was a brighter and more balanced place," he began, taking on a more clinical air as he continued. "The ice and snow would gather and recede at regular intervals following Jotunheim's fifty-year cycle instead of dumping heavily in some places and withering away from out of control sublimation elsewhere. Dangerous storms were more predictable and generally fewer, but long steady ones like this were more common. You see, blizzards like this one only came at certain times rather than the more random way they blow today. Children were born strong, stayed small for longer as toddlers, and grew in impressive fits and spurts instead of growing more gradually as they do now. There was more plant life overall since the realm had more dependable seasons. That means more heard beasts and other wildlife: and up through the food chain for those mundane creatures without strong ties to magic. Jotnar are all creatures of magic even if we don't have banded arms, and we feed off that aura naturally as plants feed off light or heat. With it disrupted, so is the life force of all the creatures, like ice drakes, that are sensitive to Jotunheim's inherent magic. We are Jotunheim, and ze is in us, but I think a priest or sorceress would be better suited to teaching you such things than I am."

"Wasn't it just a weapon?" Loki blurted out.

"No, never that, though I can see how tales of the war could give you that impression. When it is used it is a catalyst. It can be used to enhance the existing abilities of those strong enough to wield it in many ways, not just as a weapon of war. The Casket's energy can be used to heal the sick, build and stabilize pathways between districts or other realms, temper weapons or armor, and create or destroy many magical constructs - it is as versatile as magic itself in that way. Of course, it can also freeze a dozen soldiers in a single blast when treated like a weapon, but none of these things are its purpose. The Casket of Ancient Winters is first and foremost an anchor for Jotunheim's magic." The librarian pulled out a stylized map of the realm more art than utility: the collection of stardust, asteroids, planetoids, planets, and moons that made up the disk-like realm orbiting the pale blue star in its center depicted in false scale and enhanced color. In the background, the stardust held a faded impression of the casket. The Librarian stuck it to the slate board he'd been using with a bit of his ice.

"As I said, a priest would be better suited to this lesson. It is as much myth as fact, and some disagree on the details. I will try and give you as direct an answer as I can, and you can go to the temple for the full tale. In the times of old, Jotunheim was too chaotic for civilization to thrive. Zir moods were fickle, the land unstable, and whole districts would collapse and be made anew in catastrophic upheavals. Into this chaos was born a tribe of champions with banded arms declaring their unity: The Great Ymir, Father of All, who many later kings would be named after. Then came the clever Loki of the Outlands, who turned chaos into order and order into chaos. The destructive Fenrir, who was fierce enough to devour a moon. The massive Jormungand, who was the first to carve lines into his skin. The patient Hela, with an army of the dead… There are many old tales, some more myth than fact, but all containing important lessons and bits of historical truth. To stay on this topic: Ymir and his contemporaries had their differences, but in the end, worked together to calm Jotunheim's moods into a fifty-year rhythm - it's actually quite a bit more complicated than that for certain things, but for the sake of simplicity we say fifty. They forged for Jotunheim a grand jewel and placed it in a sturdy box. Then, they poured their very life and soul into the jewel. Their needs and wishes were made manifest in it, their disparate personalities giving it the balance the realm lacked. The various gifts they had were passed on to all of Jotunheim through this creation: Jormangand's lines started appearing on all children, Hela bid the dead to sleep peacefully, and so on. Since this was done in the darkest and coldest part of winter, and since the gem was sealed within its case to protect it, over time it became known as the Casket of Ancient Winters."

Loki blinked up at the librarian. This was an interesting origin myth, to say the least. Most realms started with 'out of the chaos of creation' somehow or another, but this was much more literal. The nobility came from a tribe that engineered the solar system and re-connected a people that had been on the edge of diverging into different species, like an alternate timeline of Alfheim's ancient history. There was one detail he couldn't help himself but ask after.

"What do you mean when you say Loki turned chaos into order and order into chaos?"

"Well, to speak of it from an intellectual rather than a religious viewpoint, Loki of the Outlands and zir people must have done extensive work to clear up the rogue asteroids that would occasionally devastate or destabilize the more sensitive districts. Ze was able to walk the sky - an uneducated way of saying ze could travel the districts without stable pathways, or possibly that ze created some kind of starship, but notable from a historic point of view because at the time the realm was otherwise too chaotic and primitive for such travel methods to be reliable. Ze was responsible for allowing the other early kings to spread out through the realm and conquer their own kingdoms, which over time became our modern districts. This would have required quite a bit of magic, but it also took a lot of teamwork. Loki of the Outlands made peace between many warring tribes and unified zir part of the realm rather quickly compared to zir contemporaries. That covers the order out of chaos, but ze also made chaos out of order.

"On the myth side of things: the smallest portion of alcohol would have zir mouth spewing insults, and ze didn't have much tact to begin with. Loki had no time for other's pride, and considered those without two genders weak and incomplete, starting many fights. Some say ze interfered with Jormungand's gift, so only those like them would inherit banded arms while men's lines shattered and women's snapped and curled. Others say that in the beginning the banded arms would only be passed down through their tribe, but Loki had convinced Jormungand that their tribe included all inters. As for history: the more predictable weather and stable pathways caused a huge boom in plant and animal populations, but as that settled down a little there were a lot of predatory animals whose populations had risen too far during the boom. Zir's district became an alternating riot of animal attacks and overgrowth for a time before the casket's completion. Realistically, this would have happened throughout the realm and not just in Loki's domain. Over time, after the Casket was created to anchor those spells and allow for constant even maintenance, the wild swinging between population booms caused by periodic renewal and adjustments calmed and the entire realm settled into homeostasis," the librarian explained. Loki nodded.

"So ze was both a bringer of peace and strife," Loki summarized. It was a rare thing to have such a controversial figure in religion. Religions had a tendency to paint everything in black and white over time, with little patience for gray areas in the core of their mythology.

"Unintentionally, yes," the librarian agreed. She seemed relieved to be past the more depressing topics. "In zir own mind, Loki was always the hero, but others didn't quite agree. The tale of Loki of the Outlands is about pride, great accomplishment, and the unintended consequences that go along with doing big things. Among other lessons, it warns us that even the best-laid plan that succeeds in all it was intended to do can cause unexpected damage, often in ways we could not have foreseen. We are still responsible for those hurts and trespasses, even if we did not mean to cause them. Loki refused to apologize for his careless words because ze felt they were true even if they were also hurtful. Taking them back would be dishonest, a double insult by Loki's overstrict standards, but ze did find some wonderful gifts for zir friends to show how ze valued them. Zir's opinion was that friendship and love were stronger and more real when one could acknowledge flaws - even if ze had a hard time admitting to zir own shortcomings. After all, such words can be more painful when they come from a friend. It is a contradiction, but life is often full of such things. There is not always one right answer, and sometimes even the right answer can cause pain."

"You said I could learn more about these stories at the Temple?" Loki asked. He wondered if it was Odin or Frigga that named him after a quasi-religious figure from Jotunheim.

"Yes, and I encourage you to do so. They are not exactly history, and so are not my expertise. They are about people who actually lived, but in the distant past the concept of truth was different. A story was true if its meaning was correct, not if all the details were perfectly accurate. Religion keeps to that old definition," she shrugged.

"So you aren't religious?" Loki asked. It was rather odd to hear an adult speak to a 'child' about the local religion so dismissively.

"I believe in Jotunheim and zir grace. I don't have to be an unbeliever to see that truth can have several definitions. I don't see the sacred stories as literal reports of fact, but as stories with emotional and moral truth. Some would say I am wrong to see it that way, but an equal number agree with me." The Librarian paused to let that sink in for a moment. The fact that he would say such things openly was as informative as the statement itself. "I would say that the truth in the sacred stories of our ancestors is made more valuable when you see them for what they are, old stories, since you can discard complicating details and focus on the broader picture they paint and how that applies to our modern lives. Others would say that makes it too easy to pick and choose what one will or won't listen to, thus destroying the integrity of the stories and allowing corruption of the soul. You are still too young to make a solid choice about such things, and I won't heed you if you say otherwise because at your age you will change your mind seven times a day without realizing it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been editing the third arc of this story. Here's a peek at what I've got up my sleeve:
> 
> “Thor, Frigga, if the two of you are finished your meals I would like a word with my younger son,” Odin proclaimed. They looked apologetic, but both left swiftly.  
> “Have I done something wrong?” Loki asked.  
> “You have had no man well versed in magic to look up to?” Odin asked.  
> “Well, no, not really. Magic is a crutch for old men and the weak if you go by what I have been told so often by members of the court. Everyone among the peerage has gone to great lengths to make it clear my love for ‘feminine’ hobbies is distasteful. They tolerate it in foreigners because they are foreign, and if someone from the country wanted to teach me they would find no welcome here,” Loki shrugged. Odin looked weary.  
> “I really have neglected you, haven’t I?” he asked. “I realize these words are centuries late, but here they are: My son, I will teach you.”


	11. Observation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A baby is born in Tonder.

Loki didn't examine his decision to avoid the temple. There were bigger issues to tackle than investigating the origin of his name. He'd been stuck in enemy territory well past his tolerance. Pushing through his Friday and Saturday schedules, he ignored the other children when they asked for more details about Yggdrasil and remained silent through most of his writing lessons. As soon as dinner was over Loki fled to his room, sitting in the bowl-shaped bed of furs and trying to calm down enough to think.

Two weeks ago - give or take a day for the quicker rotation of the rock he was stuck on - he'd stumbled into this realm. That time was so packed full of new discoveries and revelations about this alien culture that he simply hadn't had the time to process them. It was an often-overlooked downside of the longer-lived races of the nine: learning something new was a slow and difficult thing. Put a body in stasis and the brain goes with it, and Aesir barely age at all between 650 and 1,200. Tolfdir was clear evidence that common Alf minds were flexible enough to learn far more rapidly than Aesir. If not, Loki would have outstripped his tutor's wisdom. As it was, it took two and a half centuries for Tolfdir to declare that he couldn't call Loki his student any longer even though Loki was over twice his age at the start. It was a bright and happy memory when the Alf spoke to him as his colleague for the first time.

Loki wiped at his eyes and focused back on his time in Jotunheim. Being treated as a child again had muddled his thoughts enough to have him acting the child's part even in private, or perhaps it was the consequence of borrowing this form for so long. Gathering more knowledge of changelings would have to be a priority once he was home. He had to set himself back to rights and act as a man nearly grown enough to start his own household, as that was what he was, and put this childish weakness back into the darkened corner of memory it escaped from. The sooner the better, even if the storm kept him pinned down.

Loki had impressed some people and terrified others with his knowledge and behavior. He'd learned much about the culture of Jotunheim this way, but also revealed a lot about himself in the process. On the one hand, the added stress of keeping up an intricate web of fully fabricated lies seemed much too much effort to bother with on top of his efforts to avoid detection as an Aesir spy, but on the other some of the raw honesty he'd let loose troubled him. There were things he'd not acknowledged about himself that he had revealed here, in the relative safety of talking to strangers who he'd never see again. Now that he knew more about the instincts of Jotun young he understood why he had been so open with Odaric in particular. Once he'd decided to be honest - well, honest from a certain point of view and omitting certain key facts about his identity - his borrowed Jotun nature kicked in. These instincts would have him actively searching for a better parent whenever he left home; and while a monstrous looking creature, Odaric certainly tried harder and did better than Loki would have assumed. The retrofitting of his training to manage children was novel, caring for orphaned and lost children is a job only for women back in Asgard, and Loki had to admit it worked well. It actually made Loki look forward to his own children, though in a fully theoretical way. That was centuries ahead of him, surely, though apparently near enough to be the subject of a couple good dreams. The change from the nightmares he'd dealt with when he first arrived to images of a future family was welcome.

It was more nuanced and civilized than the realm of brutish monsters he'd been taught about, but there was plenty of horror to be found. Child neglect and abuse were rampant enough through their history that there was an entire system in place for it, one so ingrained in their nature as to be instinctual, though certainly there was also a nurturing aspect to that system. Adults had a strong corresponding drive to care for children not of their own blood, a rare thing in the nine even among the most civilized communities. He'd been welcomed with more compassion and generosity than in any other realm he'd visited, but perhaps that was just because he looked like he was one of their own kind from a (disgraced) noble family. He was one of them, or so they thought, and they treated him well. If he had shown his true self to them they would have reacted much differently. The fear the children had shown when he cast his illusions during and after the snowball fight was proof of their feelings toward other races.

There were also very few children in Tonder given the size of the city. Why that was so invaded Loki's mind at odd times. The Casket of Ancient Winters was always called a weapon in Asgard. He'd never heard anything about it's greater worth as a religious artifact, or of any other power it contained. It was oddly convenient that they no longer had means of traveling to other realms on their own since it's loss, though correlation did not always mean causation. Even if the Casket itself wasn't quite all that he'd been told it was, there were still after-effects of the war on Jotunheim that were undeniably existent. There was no reason to lie about such things, and Loki could see with his own eyes certain obvious facts. There were far more facilities for children available than were in use - in a city carved into stone it would be hard to change certain things even given a thousand years. Most of the population was either quite old or freshly trained, and one could assume that the 'missing' generation in the middle had died in the war. Add to that the trade embargo after the war and the famine that started the war and it was a bleak picture. Very few were close to Loki's age, as he sat at the beginning of a gap in successful procreation. Regardless of the why, that evidence was clear. When he'd tried to wheedle more information out of one of the coaches, the Aesir were called six kinds of murderers. Directly or indirectly, Asgard's actions here had caused the deaths of countless civilians and children.

Loki wiped his eyes again and fought to quiet his emotions. It couldn't be that bad. This was a blend of religion, myth, propaganda, and fact. Asgard could not be to blame for all of this. While he'd been taught that war was chaos and horror, the warriors of Asgard were noble and righteous. Surely, they wouldn't intentionally murder children… especially a royal infant.

"Logn! Logn, quickly!" Odaric shouted, pulling open the door and barging into the room. "Lao is giving birth!"

"Oh, that's good," Loki replied dumbly. He hoped the illusion he used to hide his distress wasn't horrible. He hadn't looked at his face in the mirror much and might not have gotten the lines right, something he really needed to fix in the near future if he planned on living long enough to get out of this city.

"Well, get up, get your nice dress on. We have to go," Odaric insisted, pointing at a slightly more decorated green dress that had hung ignored on an ice peg for the past couple days. Another gift - a little luxury no wandering peasant child in another realm could hope to stumble upon - that Loki was sure not to make a fuss about this time. He pulled the clean dress on and followed Odaric out the door cautiously.

"Would she want me there?" Loki asked. "I've never met her."

"You have already bled once; it is past time for you to see this," Odaric encouraged. He urged Loki to move faster by pushing lightly on his back. "We are not the only ones coming to watch," he explained further as they rushed along. "There will be others there to welcome the new little one."

"It's normal for this to be a public event?" Loki scoffed.

"Not quite public in a city this large, but invitations are made. In a small village, I imagine most everyone would come."

"Well, that's decided then. I'm never getting pregnant," Loki babbled.

"Why is that, now?"

"I don't want everyone rushing over to stare between my legs," Loki said pointedly. Odaric chuckled.

"You are shy about the strangest things. You will see, there is nothing suggestive about a birth," he chuckled.

Loki ran alongside Odaric's long strides. Lao lived much deeper in the city and O shuffled his old bones down a spiral ramp rather than take the gently sloping streets in order to descend faster. The man's age showed more here than Loki had seen before, but with a sturdy railing to cling to they scurried down the ramp. In a moment of childishness Loki wanted to sit down and slide, icing over the grooves in the stone as he went all the way to the bottom, but then they reached the level they needed and were hurrying along again.

It was crowded in the entrance chamber, even if it was several times the size of O's. Loki was pushed forward through the crowd of men and into one of the bedrooms. Two women Loki assumed were healers or midwives were hovering near a pacing woman. Lao was the first woman he'd seen with large breasts. She was on the modest end of the size spectrum, easily twenty-three feet tall, and coated in sweat. If Loki hadn't been told she was in labor, he wouldn't have thought she was that far along in a pregnancy. The baby barely registered on her frame compared to what he was used to seeing. A number of young people were off to one side in a semicircle; the tallest was over fifteen feet tall. The group of young girls shuffled so that they stayed organized loosely by height, which put Loki rather close to the action. The age gap caused after the war was clear to see, with the three girls in front of him only coming up to his stomach and the six behind him in the middle of their growth spurt.

"Hey, four-braids," one of the bigger girls whispered, nudging Loki, "have you seen this before?" It took a moment for his brain to catch up to the form of address based on his armbands, which he figured was akin to 'hey, blondie' in a race that had a much more limited color scheme.

"No, I haven't seen a birth," Loki whispered back, "and I'm Logn."

"I'm Rhea," she replied. Her eyes were a darker cinnabar color, her skin pale with double lines in a generally chevron pattern, and was about two feet taller than Loki. She was probably the closest to Loki in age of anyone he'd interacted with so far. "I was sick for the last one I was invited to, and I was too young to remember my first."

"Father insists I be male, and there wasn't much opportunity," Loki shrugged.

"But you are…"

"I know, but he's stubborn. It's a pride thing, fairly complicated," Loki dismissed with a flippant gesture.

"I can handle complicated," Rhea bit back.

"Well, when you figure it out you can explain it to me, because I can't."

"Oh, sorry," she cringed.

"I'm not bothered by it," Loki dismissed. "It's just how things are."

"That doesn't make it right," she mumbled. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore since you live here now."

"I'm not staying. Odaric is nice, but I miss my mother," Loki admitted, and wasn't it wild to be so honest without any negative repercussions? He'd be openly mocked for such sentiment on Asgard. "I have a good home, aside from it being overly complicated."

"I hope that works out for you," she shrugged. "I wandered away from my family because we didn't have enough food. Father came and tried to get residency here, but neither of my parents had city skills. I plan to go visit them once I've gotten established. They follow the herds of reindeer, but they have a place they go to in darkest winter to sleep through the cold."

Loki nodded as if he understood and turned his attention back to Lao. So there were requirements for residency in the city beyond paying rent. That made more sense than just giving away lots of free services. The people who lived here qualified for their place based on their ability and wandering children were evaluated for potential talent before given permanent homes. Bums would, logically, be tossed out to fend for themselves rather than draining resources. The old and retired might get a pass, but Odaric still worked in a diminished way even though he was a veteran with rather distinguished service. Then again, he might be doing odd jobs to fill his time or have extra for luxuries, Loki still wasn't terribly certain about the specifics of the man's finances. A reasonable system, in any case, for promoting industry and ensuring that no one in a city went hungry, even if it still looked like large-scale charity to Loki's eyes. Rhea didn't seem too bothered about her parents' situation, though she probably only mentioned it to make up for her own insensitive comment.

"I hope they are well when you go to meet with them," Loki finally answered.

"That's kind of you," Rhea said. "I lived with Glyn for a little while when I first came, but I was too old for that. Now I live with a weaver and a guardsman. I'm not sure if it's the craft I want, but Nala's weaving lessons are fun, and I definitely want to work with my hands. What about you?"

"I was trained as a fighter by my father and a healer by my mother," Loki shrugged.

"A battle medic?" she asked reverently.

"Logn's got four lines, of course she'd get the best jobs offered to her," one of the other girls commented. "We're supposed to be watching, not gossiping."

"Nothings happened yet," Rhea complained.

"I've read about births," Loki supplied. "It isn't always over quickly. We could be here hours."

"This is Lao's third child," the other girl snapped back with a huff. She had three hashed lines on her face, but two everywhere else, and a darker complexion. "Obviously, it won't take very long."

"That's also up to the baby, and it's only the first time it is being born," Loki countered. "The mother doesn't get full say in when the birth happens, unless there is emergency medical intervention of some kind. Anyway, I'm not a battle medic. I come from a coastal village; my skills aren't that impressive. This is the first city I've been in as long as I've been traveling Jotunheim."

"You haven't been evaluated yet?" Three-hash asked.

"I was, but I told them I wanted to go home."

"To go die in some village?" Loki was starting to really hate the older girl.

"No, to go tell my mother I'm sorry I ran off. I had my reasons, but it's not something serious like not having enough food. We live well, all things considered," Loki defended.

"Better than Tonder? You're lying."

"Luella, leave off," the tallest girl scolded. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah," Rhea agreed. "Not everyone on the outside is starving and miserable. There are other cities and towns doing just fine."

"Towns and cities, sure, but some backwater village in the wastes isn't going to keep anyone alive long. They'll all age fast and die starving," Luella taunted.

"I suppose you don't eat any fish," Loki shrugged. "If you did you would care that there were still people pulling fish from the ocean to bring to market. Even if it is hard, there are jobs that must be done in all stations. If everyone left the coastline or countryside and came to a city, the cities would starve too."

"Useless people aren't allowed here," Luella accused. "I bet you weren't even allowed to stay, and you just don't want to admit it."

"Quiet, all three of you," the tallest girl chided. "We are here for a reason." Properly chastised, they all quieted down. Loki carefully mapped out Luella's lines so he could be sure to avoid her family in the future. He was quite certain he didn't want anything to do with them.

Lao's pacing slowed, her moans of pain grew louder and more distressing. It was one thing to read about this in a brightly lit room and quite another to watch it happen. Eventually, her aids had her squat down while one of them helped brace her. The actual birth was rather sudden - one moment Lao was screaming in pain and nothing was happening, the next she was screaming and an infant plopped into the older healer's hands. There was cooing and soothing encouragement for the afterbirth while the elder woman checked over the suspiciously quiet infant.

"Ze is born inter." The quiet words from the elder woman somehow carried over the commotion, and Lao's pained moan colored with despair. Loki looked back and forth between them: the younger midwife supporting the mother through the afterbirth, Lao weeping harder than she had been from the physical pain alone, and the elder healer gently tending the child. The thick fluids were gently cleaned off with a towel revealing two perfectly straight lines encircling the child's bicep, dark and clear against skin as pale as snow. The child itself wasn't moving much at all.

They weren't trying to save it. Loki moved forward, lessons pressed into him from hours working at Eir's side flashing to the front of his mind. The midwife - she couldn't be a proper healer - was just soothing pain and ensuring it was not in obvious distress. They were all seated on the floor, with the elder woman cradling the tiny child in one hand. Loki's outstretched hand glowed green and gold as he moved to help the pale infant.

"No, child," the woman cautioned him, "you will only do yourself harm."

"We have to try," Loki insisted. "Why aren't you…?"

"You were lucky, to survive with those bands on your arms," she soothed. "Let this one sleep."

"No…" Loki said, but it was a whimper. He looked down at the tiny thing. It wasn't undersized, or he thought it wasn't from the lessons he'd endured here. Jotun newborns fit easily in the palm of an adult's hand, and this one looked well enough aside from the slightly pale color and general lack of movement. Loki touched it gently and it wiggled ever so slightly. He could feel it's infantile magic reaching out desperately and gave it a small pulse of healing magic in answer. It kicked at him once, chirping, and seemed better for a moment, but it faded too quickly. The woman was right. He'd never be able to sustain it on his own, the little thing was too needy, already reaching out desperately with its instinctive magic for more. It needed this level of treatment to have started months ago to counteract the lack of ambient energy. Why hadn't they?

"I'm sorry little one, there isn't a power strong enough in the city," she apologized.

Surely, no matter the damage to the realm, they had trained proper healers in the last thousand years? The realm might have been damaged, but it wasn't dead. Some knowledge might have been lost when innovators died, but surely libraries like the one here preserved the bulk of it. Perhaps after the trade routes were closed Jotunheim couldn't sustain the population, but it had been a millennium. Nature always moved toward equilibrium. Even if the child was born starved for magical energy, it wasn't as if the realm was lacking in power. The storm above was proof enough that the realm still had…

Loki's mind slammed against the idea, ingrained training warring with his instinctive revulsion at all things Jotun. He'd felt the power of that storm, the very air was so charged with energy that he'd had to 'see' his way through it by feeling out the voids where the solid glacier ice was when he'd first arrived in this realm. That power had allowed him to use his changeling ability even when he hadn't ever laid eyes on a Jotun before, and almost instantly rejuvenated the energy he'd spent traveling here.

"Not in the city," Loki agreed. "Above the city."

"What was that?"

Loki ignored the question and tried to stretch out his magic as he'd done before. He felt ashamed that he'd ignored the wild spell he'd invented, and more shame since he'd completely stopped the stretching exercises and his study of the music just because he'd been trapped here. He needed that knowledge now, and he had not properly practiced. It was slow to start and difficult. The hive of bees had been distracting enough when he'd become entangled in it, and now he was trying to reach a goal while being assaulted by the high-powered emotion of fully sentient and distressed creatures all around him. The spell collapsed back into him, and he took a gasping breath.

"It is proper to weep, you don't need to restrain yourself," the younger midwife spoke to Loki.

"Let me hold my child," Lao asked, exhaustion clear in her breathy voice.

"This little four-braid has healer's training, but she's too young yet to understand," The elder midwife said softly as she passed the limp child to Lao. It was still breathing easily, but that wouldn't last.

"She's nearly my age," Luella's voice cut in.

"You are not a natural healer," the tallest girl scolded through tears. "You wouldn't understand. We have to help, we need to. When we can't it hurts." Loki blinked up at them. That wasn't quite accurate, but even allowing for the colorful exaggeration how many stillborn children did one need to see before their reaction matched the elder midwife's calm acceptance?

"Quiet!" Loki insisted. He took several deep breaths. Someone pat his back, but he shook it off, eyes closed. He hummed a little, recalling the music he'd used to un-focus his mind the first time.

"Strange death-song," Luella nagged.

"Show some respect," Rhea scolded.

"Luella, I think you should leave," Lao stated through her tears. "Since you find this so trivial."

Loki focused on the song and did his best to ignore the urgency of his task and the commotion around him. The whole room was full of angry and weeping women and girls, but he had to at least make a proper attempt at giving the infant what it needed. It was innocent, completely undeserving of its fate, and if there was the slightest chance the Royal House of Asgard was responsible for this he was honor-bound to see it righted. He reached up through stone and around sleeping Jotnar, seeking the storm above. It was hard, the way was so long and full of distractions. It was difficult to keep focused on just reaching straight up. The infant was reacting to the ambient magic he was radiating like a dry sponge, adding to the strain of ignoring all the people he was navigating around by pulling at him. The glacier confused him the most - the huge gulf of nothing had him panting and scared as he fumbled around in it for a while. There was no life or heat energy to be found in the compressed ice and it was disorienting. He traced a line from himself to its edge in his mindscape and punched out and up with his full strength.

There was no gradual widening of his awareness as he'd felt before; no subtle knowledge of his surroundings creeping outward and letting him feel the shape and nature of things as happened on the quiet hilltop. One moment he was straining to control a thin jagged line of stretched out seidr over a distance far greater than was manageable, and the next he was a great swirling hub of unstoppable power crashing into a little world from above. He stretched from the sea in a great spiral of raging energy to lick loose rocks off the tops of mountains and fill valleys with snow. Lightning was his blood, cloud his body, and ice his breath as he reigned supreme. The tiny little body buried under ice and stone was nothing, and for a long moment Loki could feel only the power of driving winds and accumulating ice.

When the insistent shaking of his shoulder reminded him that he was the little mortal thing, and not actually a force of nature pouring ice and stardust down onto a planet, his natural instincts toward self-preservation had him recoiling in horror. The squalling of a baby caught his attention and reminded him of why he had done such an insane thing, and with a decided lack of good sense and an overabundance of curiosity Loki reached out again to heal the infant. As the conduit between a vast natural power bank and a greedy little black hole of a child, Loki again lost track of himself. When he sagged at last against the supportive hands behind him the child's skin was still pale, but noticeably bluer. Loki blinked starlight from his eyes and breathed heavily as a thin cocoon of ice slowly wrapped around the infant as it stilled in contentment.

"By the grace of Yggdrasil's light, the storms here are insane," Loki pronounced in slurred and accented Jotska, his magic too sparse to properly connect to the All-Speech.

"Are you with us, little one?" Odaric's voice asked from somewhere above him.

"Most of me," Loki answered. "I think I might have left a bit blowing around on the southern mountain ridge." He fumbled around and managed to get a bit of jerky out of storage. He clamped his mouth down on one end of it and sucked, too lazy to bite at it. "Mmmm."

"Take this voucher and fetch some broth," someone ordered, and soft footsteps scampered away. Loki felt light and hollow, like after a cleansing fast. He really needed to do those more regularly, there were certain dangers for mages that ignored such things, but his duties as prince got in the way. He laid limp and still, sucking on his bit of jerky and letting his mind wander as it wished, while the elder midwife checked him over. The younger one helped get the infant comfortable.

"What did she do?" some young voice asked.

"Old magic," Odaric supplied. "I've not felt its like since I was in the war and His Majesty Farbuti called to Jotunheim."

"I thought she was from a fishing village," Lao said. "You told me…"

"She's a modest little one, she didn't tell me she studied such arts. She did say her family had many things from before trade stopped. I took that to mean the Aesir blockade, but perhaps she meant Svartalfheim," O explained.

"I'm awake, you know," Loki said around his savory lolly. "I don't know where the spell came from. It's meant for recon: it lets me feel further, at a cost. That's how I made it underground during the storm. I felt my way along. There isn't much ambient magic here, but up there? It's a riot. Too much, just… just too much."

"Traitors," a man hissed. "Hoarding resources and biding their time, hoping the crown falls so their bastard line can take it up."

"Whatever motivated Logn's family to keep such things to themselves, they aren't any better off than the rest of us," Odaric defended. "They suffered and hoped against reason that this time of loss would pass swiftly. Would you prefer they let their knowledge and magic die? Logn has been trained, so rigorously it borders on the obscene, so that her aging father can die knowing that little irreplaceable skill was lost. If the ban on travel to other realms was lifted tomorrow precious few of us would have even the slightest idea how to deal with other races, but her family kept to lessons others abandoned."

"You are still too steeped in political filth from the capital."

"My years of service there only make my opinions more valid in this case. I have watched Logn. What she knows, and does not know, only makes sense if you were training a child to re-establish trade lines to distant realms. She may be shy and defensive, but she also just saved an infant she had no connection to at great risk to her own life," Odaric declared. "They knew they could not keep a child happy and give it such strict treatment. They knew that no child could learn how to live in this realm as it is and in what they hoped it would become without sacrificing something, so they taught her how to survive alone wandering for weeks on end. That is not the behavior of one who does not realize the evil of their own actions."

"That's horrible," the tallest girl said, laying a cloth on Loki's forehead.

"You can't take the child's word," the man, Lao's relative or husband from the way he was hovering over her, argued.

"I haven't. I have listened to her, but I have also watched and tested," Odaric calmly informed him. "She only left when her teacher started melting from age."

"Master Tolfdir is the oldest in his family, as far back as they are aware," Loki murmured, speaking aloud without meaning to. "We should be glad he is still with us."

"You also told me you are the youngest child of a man old enough to have grandchildren," Odaric said.

"Yes," Loki confirmed, still feeling drunk and lazy. Ingrained manners kicked in and he removed the food from his mouth, "but, Tolfdir has great-grandchildren, though they live far away. We visit them. That's how I learned to travel."

"You help him travel between districts?"

"Anytime he asked I would walk with him, and I learned all about the pathways. Took me over two hundred years. I owe him so much, and now I'm trapped here, under that horrifying storm. What use is a Traveler who can't go anywhere?" Loki moaned, curling on his side. "I can't even step outside."

"You saved my child," Lao pointed out. "Look." Loki picked up his head and saw the infant had latched onto its mother's breast and was greedily sucking milk.

"Insatiable little thing," Loki muttered.

"Ze has a lot of growing to do," the midwife soothed. "As do you."

"I'm big enough to take care of myself," he fussed.

"Yet small enough you should not have to," Odaric cut in before anyone else protested. "Go to sleep now."

"Are you kidding?" Loki barked out, laughing, "I just spent however long that was magically connected to a storm caused by this planet passing through a cloud of charged stardust. I don't think I'll sleep for days. As soon as I work out how to properly connect my brain to my body again I'll be running in circles."

"Calm yourself," the midwife giggled, "and ignore the grumpy old soldiers who never learned magic beyond their own ice. You need meditation, quiet, and nourishment."

"I've got one of those," Loki commented before sticking the jerky back in his mouth.

"I see that. Now, let's get you settled down for the other two," she said, gently picking Loki up and folding him like a doll into a little nest of furs in one corner. He didn't protest; he didn't think he could move properly with how disjointed everything felt. There was a subdued sort of celebration going on around the baby, but it was hushed and careful. He fumbled around a bit until he had his music player and stuffed the ends in his ears. If anyone asked him about it he didn't notice or care over the loud music and foreign voices that filled his senses.

Loki noticed when Rhea came back into the room because of the scent of broth. He'd slowly nibbled the jerky down to a little nub, and when the midwife offered him a bowl from the pot he put away the music and drank it down without any assistance. He felt great now that he'd filled his stomach, but the women weren't convinced.

"I don't care how you feel, what you just did was dangerous wild magic and you will sit still and stay where a trained healer can see you," Groa, the elder midwife, insisted.

"I'm fine," Loki complained.

"You will stay right there," Lao quietly ordered. "You can leave at sunset, with Miah."

Loki huffed, seeing that no amount of pouting would work. Lao's two elder children snuggled down into some furs in the corner near him once the boys had run out of excitement about their new sibling. They'd been exhausted by the late hour to begin with, so it was rather impressive how long they'd held out. He tried some more traditional meditation methods, carefully counting his breaths.


	12. Grand Accomplishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm ends.

In the end, Loki couldn't get free so quickly. Groa and Miah took turns checking Loa, the baby, and Loki for any ill effects through the next night. They were fully trained healers, despite their lack of action, and they both took to narrating everything they did. It was an unsubtle attempt to get information out of Loki while offering additional training, but he refused to comment. Everything they said was too basic to comment on anyway, and it wasn't even an effort to look bored and put-upon by their constant hovering. He'd been provided books to study from including one that was partially in all-speech. He'd read that one first and was quite pleased with its style despite being a simple fable about friendship with a mirrored translation style page layout designed for language study.

Indirect but unsubtle seemed to be the order of the day. It wasn't completely insulting, and it did show that they were intelligent enough to realize confronting him directly on certain subjects was useless, but Loki wished they would just give up. Loa's husband, Grath, had gotten over his impotent anger over his child's near death and apologized for taking out his stress on everyone around him, including Loki. The man talked about his work at the forge, which was mostly with pewter and other relatively soft metals. He'd been bored enough that the new topic of conversation was welcome, and he learned a bit about low-temperature metalworking.

Loki'd been properly prepared to regret what he'd done until Loa put the tiny thing into his lap. The infant was cute. He couldn't fight it, it was tiny and adorable and so purely non-threatening that he'd sat there reading with it in his lap for over an hour under Grath's watch while Loa bathed and fed her older sons. The two brothers were endlessly fascinated by the cute little lump, no matter that all it did was eat, sleep, and make mess. More worryingly they seemed to include Loki in their fascination. No matter how clearly he told them to leave him alone they kept asking him to play and when they had their midnight nap they chose him as their pillow no matter how much he protested. Grath told him to try and nap himself while warning him that the boys would not give up without some good reason, and Loki didn't have one to give.

Odaric came to collect Loki before it was time to sleep another day away. The boys protested, but Loki bluntly told them he had his own family and didn't want theirs. It was effective if not polite, and Loki was glad to have that over with. The storm would end soon, he could feel that when he'd had his out of body experience, and he could go back to the controlled chaos of his life on Asgard. He was so past his tolerance for this bizarre realm that he wasn't sure how much longer he could handle living this way. It wasn't even rational since all his complaints were nonsensical or petty. He was well fed even if he didn't like the food, clothed well by their standards even if he would rather not be so naked, and educated even if they were condescending about it. Odaric's toothy smile still gave him shivers of memory from scary fireside tales, but he was well trained in controlling his behavior from the court.

At least he could go back to Asgard knowing he had saved one innocent life. Perhaps they would realize that they didn't need the Casket of Ancient Winters to be in Jotunheim for them to perform strong magic. Whatever propaganda was being used in this realm was clearly strong enough to perpetuate both itself and the hostility to the other realms that started their problems. If they could leave that behind the situation might become stable enough that peace talks could resume, though King Laufey might need to be taken down first. No matter what was claimed here the other kings wouldn't trust a man who attacked Midgard unprovoked without apology, and Laufey couldn't talk peace so long as he claimed the All-father killed his infant child.

He did not return to the training grounds. In response to the level of 'untrained' natural talent he demonstrated, he was brought to the library as soon as he woke. There they took from him the slate and chalk he usually used and gave him a notebook of loosely bound parchment and a stick of graphite. The librarians with two lines that had been teaching him appeared only long enough to give introductions before a four-lined old woman with the personality of a raging boar declared that she would be pushing him to his limits. She had him copy out whole sections of books while she talked about them, brutally informing him that she would not read aloud anything verbatim for him and the less he copied before the storm ended the less he would have to take home to his village. When he slowed down she snapped at his laziness and attempted to emotionally blackmail him, saying that he was depriving his family of valuable information by being slow. She provided him with as many of the thin, cheaply bound notebooks as he needed with minimal discussion of the content of the writing.

If he'd been clearer of mind, Loki might have intentionally slowed himself, but the naked challenge in her disapproving eyes and scornful voice had him moving at top speed. This was a point of pride mixed with the opportunity to translate 'essential magical fundamentals' at his leisure in his own home. Given the quality of books from Jotunheim in the higher realms, this was rare information from a primary source: a prized jewel in any scholar's collection no matter the content. Simply put, he wanted it too much to see any risk in doing less than his actual best. With only a brief break to funnel food and drink into his body (as quickly as he could without looking too closely at the 'high-quality' meal of suspiciously insect-like ingredients) he'd reached the end of the night with two filled notebooks.

The next day was the same, and it was several days like this before he realized he'd worked straight through a Sunday without notice or complaint. The four-lined woman he'd been assigned to was unrelenting: if he filled three notebooks in a day she expected four the next. She began to randomly ask him questions, sometimes of lessons from days past and others from passages he wasn't quite finished with. It was hectic and exhausting, but he utterly refused to fail her challenge. He was a Master of Magic in his own right, a scholar with his own designated room in the palace library and a private workshop, and he'd been tested by too many disbelieving old women before. Young Aesir men were good for nothing but hard labor and bothered to put little between their ears until they were old and set in stubborn ways. It was the women of Asgard that were the inventors, as they held within them the power of creation. Maybe this crusty old Giantess didn't know he was an Aesir warrior, but she treated him with the same disdain and disbelief. It was no different than being turned away from the creative and playful contests the young sorceresses spent most of their time engrossed in. He wasn't the right kind of person to be doing such things, but there he was doing them anyway.

He'd show them all what he was worth.

If there were any consequences to be had from shedding all pretense and letting the crotchety old bitch know exactly how well he understood the books she was feeding him, they never had time to land on his head. After a week and a half of falling into bed exhausted with cramping fingers and a head swimming in foreign concepts of magical theory Loki received the best news he'd yet heard. Odaric shook him awake in the early evening and half-carried him up to the surface to see the waning light of the sun.

To Jotun eyes the dim sunset was a blaze of vibrant aurora nearly too bright to look at. The trailing edge of the storm cut the sky into a dark and light section, the too-bright sunlight rapidly being replaced by enough starlight to make the glowing halls of Tonder look dim. Musicians were already joyfully playing music to celebrate the storm's end, seemingly without organization of any kind. It took Loki a moment to absorb the shock of it, and then he was cheering along with the Jotnar, letting out his relief and joy with a wordless shout. Odaric pulled him to where one of the herd-beasts of this realm had been brought up to the surface from the storm shelter below. A priest said a few words and it was humanely killed and butchered, the fresh food passed out to the crowd via an orderly queue. Loki politely ate the scrap of raw meat he received, already dreaming of the fresh salads and roasted poultry he'd dine on when he was home.

Odaric cautioned him to stay close. He said something about meeting up with Jette and going to Utgard or Thrymheim to use safer roads, but Loki wasn't listening. The celebration was chaotic and passionate. People of all ages were quite literally dancing with happiness. For a moment he thought work was being done to clear the road to Utgard, but once a couple metal rods were in place to mark the edge the workers abandoned the task and joined the party. It seemed they had done the minimum needed to ensure the doors separating the outdoor highway from the vaulted entrance of the city where High Street and Forge Street began was kept clear. The large stone structure carved from a single outcropping of bedrock was battered and utilitarian in comparison to the halls below, but still quite impressive considering it survived the siege Asgard assaulted it with a thousand years ago without needing to patch the stone. Perhaps that was why they left the grooves in it from Aesir weapons, so they could say it was still one single stone, though it might be that the storms would wear most mortar away too quickly to be worth using.

It was no trouble at all to leave Odaric behind. A blind man could hardly be faulted for losing a child in such a wild celebration. Loki joined a group of dancers, moved to their far side, then joined another group. In this way he celebrated his way over to the edge of the festivities without drawing the attention that a sprinting child would. It was a little more difficult to get past the soldiers that guarded the edge of the party without drawing attention, but they didn't seem to pay him much mind.

He took a deep breath and looked back at the raucous gathering of an entire city's worth of people on the ice. The fresh snow was deep, this far from the main group Loki was buried up to his waist in untrodden snow as soft as down, and Loki impulsively gathered a handful and tossed it up into the air. Playing the innocent child had been a bit of fun in an otherwise intolerable situation. He would miss that if nothing else.

"I take it you are leaving my city tonight?" a deep voice caught Loki by surprise. There was a shimmer and suddenly three horned Jotnar were standing between Loki and the celebrating crowd. He recognized the smallest as the Baron's firstborn and after a beat deduced that the inter and woman must be the Baron Rald and his Baroness. Loki gave an abbreviated bow. He now realized the soldiers he passed weren't just keeping an eye out for bandits or wild animals.

"I have to get home," Loki explained simply.

"Others would try and detain you. I have never believed in doing an evil thing for good reasons, so I would never force the hand of a child. I wish you well and hope you will return knowing that my city is a safe haven for any child. You are always welcome in my city, little bird," the Baron said graciously. "You have done Jotunheim a service during this storm. As long as there are rooms to spare any you know with skill would be welcome here as well. I know that pride will make a man cling to his title, and your," there was a brief but pause, and the next few words sounded like they tasted foul, "elder brother may do well when he inherits his father's place, but there is a point where pride turns to folly. We need only look around us to see that clearly. With your talent, greater honor could be bestowed on you than a mere village leader by merit alone. If the others in your village have similar levels of skill they may do well to seek out better lives. Jotunheim is always changing, and we must change with her or starve in stubbornness. Please tell them that. As for you, it has been an honor to have had you visit. It is a blessing I wish my city to have again."

"I will consider it, but right now I am missed," Loki replied, a bit mystified by the speech. The three of them smiled happily, no doubt thinking that Loki was sure to return after such a gracious invitation. The Baron's inter son blushed a little, and Loki wondered if there was some meaning he was missing in what had been said.

"You will be missed," the son offered stiffly, "wherever you are not."

"Do yourself a favor and do not attempt poetry in future," Loki chuckled, turning away and pushing through the deep snow. He heard the noble family moving off behind him, the spell they used to remain unnoticed going back up after a moment. Loki could feel its crackle now that he wasn't so distracted.

It took half the night for Loki to find the entrance to Yggdrasil's branches. He cautiously used his wild magic to feel around in conjunction with more refined methods of sounding out the crack in reality leading to Yggdrasil and found that the air was still quite charged with magical energy. He felt the beginnings of plants gobbling up the stardust that fell with the snow, though he could see none, and he had a passing thought that it was much like a desert after rainfall. The plants would sprout, feast, and bloom quickly before going dormant again.

No one bothered him or tried to bring him back, though he did spot a soldier from time to time making their rounds and taking note of him. He used spells to smooth the snow, but while Aesir eyes couldn't tell the difference (he'd checked) the disturbance in the snow was still a bit too obvious to Jotun eyes for his taste. Once he found the entrance he intentionally walked along the jagged edge of the cliff Tonder was built under for a long time, doubling back and looping around to disguise his path. It was just before dawn when he finally stepped through, chased by an alarm spell he'd left informing him that a larger group was coming his way. His time limit to prove he could get home alone was clearly up, and he could only hope he'd left confusing enough tracks in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:
> 
> Loki stepped out into the brightly lit forest, tired but with a bone-deep joy and relief at his homecoming fueling him. It took a moment to swap the sheer dress for traveling leathers, and then there was no hint that he’d left the realm. He used his magic to teleport himself along, covering as much ground as a galloping horse in line-of-sight jumps until it started to get dark. He practically skipped into an inn at a crossroad. Inside he sat down to a meal of freshly baked bread, slow-roasted chicken, and a bright fruity cider. Local woodsmen filtered in and had their own meals as the remaining suns set, and with time someone started playing a fiddle. Several people greeted him gladly, professing their good wishes to the royal family. Loki responded by putting a few coins toward everyone’s bill, allowing the scattered families that were in attendance to spend it on summer sweets instead of drink. When the cheer from the round of mead most of the men bought died down the fiddler came over and started up a traditional song. Loki pulled out his flute and joined in the old folk song as several voices took up the well-known lyrics. This was Asgard at it’s very best. Simple but delicious food, a gathering of individuals who fought hard for everything they had, a shared song, and the smell of fresh baked pies. The early evening turned into night, the innkeeper’s daughter graced him with a pretty and inviting smile, and he slept quite well considering he’d ended up alone in a cheap, smallish bed.


End file.
